Thursday, December 09, 2004

[Green building] PBS environmental home improvement series GreenBlue, the non-profit sustainability catalyst organization started by Bill McDonough and Michael Braungart, is working with Desert Moon Productions to generate the funding needed for the PBS environmental home improvement series, Build It Green!. PBS has solicited 13 episodes of Build It Green! for national syndication, the first home improvement-style entertainment television show focused solely on environmentally-friendly techniques. Desert Moon has had a hard time getting the funding needed to make this happen - hopefully GreenBlues' involvement will make the difference. In the first episode, a family constructs a solar-hydrogen-powered, self-sufficient home. [Source: Sustainablebusiness.com Update] 12:58:09 PM Google It!    [Fuel cells] The SME Advanced Energy and Fuel Cell Technologies Conference The Society of Manufacturing Engineers (SME) recently held its first ever Advanced Energy & Fuel Cell Technologies conference & exposition from October 11-13, 2004, at Laurel Manor in suburban Detroit. Read the full article at http://www.fuelcelltoday.com/FuelCellToday/FCTFiles/FCTArticleFiles/Article_920_SME_Report_Liskey.pdf. 12:55:44 PM Google It!    [Green building] Low-Income-Housing Builders See Green The Dec. 16 groundbreaking for Denny Park, a 50-unit affordable housing project in Seattle, will break new financing ground too. The project is the first in a nationwide program to combine special "green" building funding with federal low-income housing tax credits. To qualify as environmentally correct, the apartments take advantage of east-west exposures, are near amenities and public transportation and were built with durable 50-year exterior materials and low-maintenance landscaping. [Source: Forbes Magazine] 12:52:52 PM Google It!    [Profiles] Green Homes: Healthy Living Interviews Mindy Pennybacker Healthy Living recently caught up with Mindy Pennybacker of The Green Guide Institute, editor of The Green Guide newsletter and www.thegreenguide.com. If you are not familiar with The Green Guide, suffice it to say that it is an amazing resource that brings objective, responsible and accurate environmental and health information to the general public. This month, we talked to Mindy about making "green" changes in the home for improved personal health and to minimize environmental impact. 12:51:22 PM Google It!    [Meetings] Greening the Heartland 2005 Dates: June 1-3, 2005 Location: Palmer House Hilton, Chicago IL Cost: $385 USD The 2005 Greening the Heartland conference will be an opportunity to present and examine green building in the context of a variety of sustainable business models that focus on innovation and the ability to implement and market these practices in the region. (Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin.) 12:49:33 PM Google It!    [Energy policy] Ending the Energy Stalemate: A Bipartisan Strategy to Address America's Energy Challenges Energy Policy--United States Source: National Commission on Energy Policy Ending the Energy Stalemate: A Bipartisan Strategy to Address America's Energy Challenges (PDF; 2.29 MB) From press release: "A bipartisan group of top energy experts from industry, government, labor, academia, and environmental and consumer groups today released a consensus strategy, more than two years in the making, to address major long-term U.S. energy challenges. The report...contains detailed policy recommendations for addressing oil security, climate change, natural gas supply, the future of nuclear energy, and other long-term challenges, and is backed by more than 30 original research studies." [ResourceShelf's DocuTicker] 12:44:07 PM Google It!    [Toxics] Toxmap by Steven Cohen, Contributing Editor Toxic Chemicals--United States--Maps Source: NLM Toxmap This past week, the National Library of Medicine (US) announced the availability of a new interactive web site titled TOXMAP. According to the press release, TOXMAP, "shows--on maps--the amount and location of certain toxic chemicals released into the environment in the United States...[and]...focuses on the geographic distribution of chemical releases, their relative amounts, and their trends over time....TOXMAP also links to NLM's extensive collection of toxicology and environmental health references, as well as to a rich resource of data on hazardous chemical substances in its TOXNET databases (http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/). There are also fact sheets and summaries about the various chemicals, written by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry." We took the site for a trial run and was very impressed with its various features. There is a Quick Search feature which allows for the user to search for a chemical name, city, state, and zip-code. The results bring back a map of the queried destination, with the toxic chemicals noted by blue squares. The maps allow for zooming in and out of a specialized location. One of the interesting features is a "Toxline" search for the area of interest. For example, after I queried my zipcode, I was allowed to search Toxline special and Toxline Core on Pubmed (Not a static URL), which brought back results from PubMed with my geographic specifications already placed in the query bar. Take a look at the search query for the Toxline special search. Other interesting add ons involve the ability to add U.S. Census data to the map or Reference Data, which includes, "information such as cities, roads, federal land, urban areas, and roads".  - gary [ResourceShelf] 12:38:01 PM Google It!    [Green products] They're dreaming of a green Christmas A rising number of Americans say they would pay more for products that cause less pollution. [Christian Science Monitor | Sci/Tech] 12:34:37 PM Google It!    [Recycling] North Carolina 'Tinkerer' Recycles Automotive Antifreeze, Sells it Back to Shops All but worthless in itself, used motor oil became valuable enough 20 years ago that a network developed to link auto repair shops with re-refiners who turned waste oil into fuel or an ingredient in asphalt. [ENN Recycling Channel] 12:33:55 PM Google It!    [Profiles] 'Hero of the Planet' Engineer Puts 'Green' Mark on Building Design William McDonough is trying to change the way the world works. McDonough calls "cradle to grave" the Industrial Revolution model of extracting natural resources for products destined for the landfill. [ENN Recycling Channel] 12:33:24 PM Google It!    [Corporate sustainability] Article Highlights Dupont Case Study of EHS Organizational Quality A recent article published in the Winter 2004 Environmental Quality Management journal written by Richard MacLean, "EHS Organizational Quality: A DuPont Case Study – Best practices in corporate environmental, heath, and safety organizational design,” focuses on the Environmental, Health and Safety (EHS) organizational best practices of DuPont as an "Organization in Transition". Written by Richard MacLean, President of Competitive Environment Inc. and the Center for Environmental Innovation, the article presents research from interviews of key individuals in DuPont's organizational structure and explores the elements of a balanced and robust EHS organization. This study is part of ongoing research program at the Center for Environmental Innovation called "Organizations in Transition." An online version of the article is available at http://www.Competitive-E.com. [ChemAlliance Environmental News] 12:23:15 PM Google It!

© Copyright 2005 Laura L. Barnes. Last update: 10/25/2005; 12:08:11 PM.