The first step to any green building or renewable energy project of any size is finding the financing to make it possible. Since the bottom fell out of the economy, finding investors and financial institutions willing to finance building projects of any sort has been close to impossible. Real estate finance prognosticators, however, indicate that
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LEED
Your new “McMansion ” is 10,000 square feet of triple-pane, low-e, argon gas-filled windows, R-35 walls, R-60 ceilings, a solar thermal hot water system, a solar photovoltaic 10 kilowatt energy system, and a water reclamation system that reuses “greywater” for ornamental plantings around the exterior.
The U.S. Department of Defense has historically been at the forefront of many of the innovative clean technologies of our generation-and for good reason. Distributed renewable energy installations have reduced the amount of liquid fuels being transported to remote bases, thereby minimizing the vulnerability of
A Star Is Falling–Builders Association of the Twin Cities Sues Minnesota Green Star
written by Shari Shapiro
Ahhh holiday time, when the sound of the clerk’s stamp on green litigation rings merrily in my ears. On December 9, 2010, the Builders’ Association of the Twin Cities (BATC) sued Minnesota Green Star (GreenStar). The Complaint and Motion for a temporary restraining order is available here.
It’s no secret that, regardless of how the world addresses the challenge of reducing global carbon emissions, buildings are going to be a central part of the puzzle. Buildings represent about one-third of emissions worldwide and provide some of the quickest and most cost-effective ways to reduce carbon emissions.
The General Services Administration is one of the largest owners of real estate in the country, composed primarily of office buildings and courthouses, land ports of entry, and warehouses. The GSA owns and leases more than 354 million square feet of space in 8,600 buildings across the nation.
The GSA is also the owner of one of the greenest real estate porfolios. As of the
Last week I attended GreenBuild in Chicago, and spoke on a panel with my fellow green law bloggers about the future of green building law and policy. We are planning a joint follow-up post on our predictions with Lloyd Alter at Treehugger which will come out in the next few days. But there were many other highlights of the conference:
My two and a half year old daughter likes conversations about pee. She is not the only one in my life, apparently. To my infinite surprise, one of the top rated posts on GBLB over the past year was the one I did in February on waterless urinal problems.
Imagine paying less than $15 a month for electricity and gas. Imagine living in a home without air conditioning or heating vents. If the price sounds right, but the house itself sounds either drafty or stifling, think again.
If you were living in a passive house, you wouldn’t have traditional heating and cooling equipment, but you’d still be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. And your
NOTE: The opinions expressed in this post are entirely those of the author, and do not represent the position of the USGBC or the Delaware Valley Green Building Council.
As almost anyone in the green community knows, last week LEED Critic Henry Gifford sued the USGBC for, essentially, a few different flavors of fraud. Mr. Gifford sued
You had to know this was coming. I even predicted a Lanham Act and Consumer Fraud Act claim would be part of a good green litigation.
Earlier this week, Henry Gifford, public critic of LEED (you may have read his Op-Eds in the New York Times) filed a class action law suit against the USGBC and its founders
Today attention is paid to one of two things regarding green building: energy cost reductions and/or the coveted LEED Plaque. Both are important – one to demonstrate return on investment while the other showcases a company’s ability to “walk the walk.” However within the world of commercial office space, one component of green building should shine above all else – impact of indoor environments on the people who occupy them.
How significant would it be if America’s 29 million small businesses increased their energy efficiency and reduced their emissions? Judging from the example of one California entrepreneur, the impact could be far greater than you might expect.
Would enlisting millions of small companies in a national response to climate change be
Although Latin America boasts a number of the world’s largest urban areas, green building in Latin America has lagged far behind its counterparts north of the Rio Grande. The green building market in Latin America is an early-stage market in which the main developments center around risk-takers and early adopters. Many building owners still don’t understand green building