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This year’s American Institute of Architects (AIA) Top 10 Green Building projects were honored on May 1st at the National Building Museum and will be again at the AIA National Convention and Design Expo in San Diego, California on May 9th. They were chosen based on a positive contribution to their community, comfort for building occupants, and reduced environmental impacts through strategies such as: reuse of existing structures, connection to transit systems, low-impact site development, energy and water conservation, use of green construction materials, and design that improves indoor air quality.The projects incorporate commonly used green building features: passive and active solar heating and cooling, natural ventilation, daylighting, high-efficiency lighting and appliances, and less common techniques of earth-sheltered or straw-bale construction. Winners include a spectrum of building types – new construction and renovation of office, retail, residential, academic, and institutional facilities. The Chicago Center for Green Technology, for example, is an ambitious LEED Platinum design that uses almost 50% less energy than comparable construction, gets over 17% of its energy from solar and used 36% recycled materials in its construction. All of tenants are involved in environmental-related pursuits including Spire Solar Chicago (solar panel manufacturer), Green Corps (landscape training) and […]
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New Solar Venture Capital FundSolar Development Capital (SDC) is a 10-year, $28.75 million private equity fund designed to invest globally in PV-related businesses. It will be managed by Triodos PV Partners and invest in companies that distribute PV products or services in unelectrified rural areas in developing nations. Most companies will provide customer leasing or credit that extends payments to overcome the initial expense of installing PV systems. SDC is working with the Solar Development Foundation to support entrepreneurs with funding for management, technical and market assistance. Projects have been identified in Africa, Asia and Latin America.Lead investors are the International Finance Corporation (for its own account and acting on behalf of the Global Environment Facility), the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs and Triodos Groenfonds. Other investors include AstroPower, Inc., Calvert World Values International Equity Fund, Cordaid, Rabo Sustainability Fund and the Wind Fund. The World Bank Group and several charitable foundations initiated the Solar Development program. Management was awarded to Triodos PV Partners, formed by Triodos Bank Group, Environmental Enterprises, and Global Transition Consulting, who collectively have $280M under management and broad experience with PV businesses. See our Business Opportunities section for a list of VCs that invest […]
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These Tomes Sum It UpEverything you ever wanted to know about sustainable development – two mammoth efforts sum it up. Our Fragile World: Challenges and Opportunities for Sustainable Development is 2240 pages long. It comes with an accompanying CD-Rom and two-year access to the web-based Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems which debuts in December 2001. It presents the vision and thinking of over 200 authors in support of efforts to solve the complex problems connected with sustainable development. There are interviews with Maurice Strong, Mikhail Gorbachev, Steven Rockefeller, Maritta Koch-Weser and many others. A large section is devoted to economics, business and public policy, and sustainable business and development. Among the many articles are: “International Commodity Policy”, “Growth, Sustainability, and the Power of Scale,” “The Role of Business and Industry,” “The Information Economy and the Internet,” and “Sustainable Economic Systems.” The Encyclopedia of Life Support Systems organizes the work of many of the world’ s foremost scholars, experts, and policy-makers in all major fields. It represents the ‘ state-of-the-art’ on virtually every aspect of the life support systems on which we depend with 200 subject themes and 6000 contributors. And there are messages from Richard R. Ernst, Nobel Laureate-Chemistry, Leon […]
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