[Editor’s note: This post is authored by Bill Walsh, Executive Director of the Healthy Building Network .] When building products carry different green certifications, how do you know which product is best? Maybe there is a way to compare apples and oranges. As green certifications and labels have proliferated, so has greenwash.
Forget Energy Star or even LEED — if you really want to slash your carbon footprint, living in a passive house is the way to go. Recently, Menlo Park, California, gained its first such home: Menlo Passive House, which was built by Clarum Homes.
According to The Almanac Online, insulation, airtight window frames, solar power, and a heat-recovery ventilation system all converge here in helping the home cut its energy costs by 90 percent. While Clarum has built passive-inspired homes with various sustainable systems in the past, this is the company’s first project built to meet all the standards required for certification from Passive House Instistute U.S.
The behavioral shift towards sustainable development that we’re experiencing has changed the real estate landscape, however the marketing benefits, performance guarantees, and incentives that accompany green development don’t come without legal risks. If you want to learn about these risks and issues there’s no better forum than GBLU. Chris has been the ‘go-to’ source for all green building legal issues. When I learned that he was accepting guest post submissions I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be a part of such a great community.
OAKLAND, California, October 8, 2010 (ENS) – More than 7,000 events are expected to take place in 188 countries for the 10/10/10 Global Work Party, “the single largest day of carbon-cutting action in the planet’s history,” according to organizing nonprofit 350.org.
The group’s name indicates that the world must return to 350 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to forestall the worst impacts of global warming.
As of April 2010, the CO2 concentration level was 392 parts per million. Carbon dioxide and other gases blanket the Earth in the greenhouse effect, blocking the planet’s natural ability to radiate the Sun’s heat back out into space.
Efforts to create harmonized national standards for minimizing chemical emissions from products and materials used indoors took a giant step forward in early July when President Barack Obama signed into law Senate Bill 1660, the Formaldehyde Standards for Composite Wood Products Act . This legislation amends the federal Toxic Substance Control Act to establish the first national emissions standard for formaldehyde in new composite wood products and is the most rigorous production standard worldwide. It also requires that the US Environmental Protection Agency develop a new federal regulation by January 1, 2013, to implement its provisions, which will become effective on July 1, 2013
Up to now, major court cases in the ongoing Chinese-made drywall situation have not dealt with any medical or health-related claims. But health issues are sure to come up in court eventually; and in the mean time, fears about possible health effects of the defective material are likely to impact the market value of affected housing — even after all the bad drywall has been removed and replaced with U.S.-made material. The past month has seen a handful of news items about drywall-related health fears
