Axion International Holdings is increasing the performance of its recycled plastic bridges with a contact from the U.S. Army to build two railroad bridges that can support 130 tons.

Axion will be building the bridges, which will be made almost entirely of recycled post-consumer plastic, at Fort Eustis in Virginia, the home of the US Army Transportation Corps. The bridges will be used for locomotives and freight traffic as part of military movements and base exercises.

Local and federal dignitaries celebrated the opening of a development at Fort Shafter, the U.S. Army Pacific Headquarters, that’s being hailed as the greenest neighborhood on a military installation and the largest project of its kind for the Army.

In many cases, sustainability initiatives are only as good as the buy-in they receive from employees — the men and women who ultimately turn off the lights, throw their trash into recycling bins, and take the bus to work.

But what are the key ingredients needed to bring employees on board? Brighter Planet, an environmental services company that helps people reduce their environmental impacts, aims to find out with a survey designed to explore how employers and workers interact on sustainability.

Savannah College of Art and Design President Paula Wallace was presented with the Fashion Group International 2009 Sustainability Award on behalf of the university at FGI’s star-studded 26th Annual Night of Stars Gala Thursday, Oct. 22, in New York City.

The Sustainability Award is in recognition of SCAD’s position as a leader in sustainable practices, urban renewal and the adaptive reuse of historic properties. Vogue Editor-at-Large André Leon Talley, recipient of and namesake to SCAD’s annual André Leon Talley Lifetime Achievement Award, presented the Sustainability Award to Wallace.

UL Environment plans to develop sustainability standards for stone, ceramic, clay and glass building materials, as well as glazing materials, windows and their associated hardware and accessories.

Like a Ginsu knife commercial (but wait, there’s more!), GreenerBuildings.com concludes its special Greenbuild coverage with a look back over the week in Phoenix.

In the latest move to expand its sustainability efforts, Marriott International Inc. says its green hotel portfolio will grow tenfold in the next five years with the introduction of design prototypes for new green properties.

The company is targeting its limited service line — the brands that primarily serve business travelers — in seeking pre-certification of prototype designs through the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED volume certification program, Marriott executives said in announcing their plans at the Greenbuild 2009 conference.

You don’t have to look far to see just how much concrete humans use. Everything from highways to high-rise and bridges to runways around the world are made with the energy-intensive, carbon-spewing material.

Contributing at least 5 percent of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the cement industry is ripe for changes to lower its impact. Cement, the glue that binds concrete, is one of the most carbon-intensive materials out there: It produces one ton of CO2 for every ton of cement made.

A number of companies, looking to cut the global impact of concrete, as well as open up huge markets for greener building blocks, are using a variety of methods like replacing concrete ingredients and adding new materials that make concrete waterproof.

The Green Grid consortium is putting the final touches to a new Data Center Design Guide, which will aim to bring together the plethora of advice on how to curb energy use in firm’s server farms and provide a comprehensive overview of environmental best practices for data center managers.

The latest federal survey of American housing (2007) reported 128 million housing units across the U.S.,   accounting for nearly 54 percent of national energy use and nearly 31 percent of all U.S. carbon dioxide emissions, the most common greenhouse gas contributing to climate change.

Many green building practices and technologies have yet to make a dent in the existing residential market, in part because it is hard for people to find clear, consolidated, readily accessible, and credible information. The Green Homes Web site addresses that need by providing guidance on approaches to greening each room of the home as well as the surrounding yard.  Information also is available on building new homes and finding an energy efficient mortgage, which takes into account the savings derived from energy efficient homes to enable the applicant to qualify for better terms. Renters will find information to help them identify a green property before moving in and tips for working with their landlord to add green features to an existing property. Users can also find references, such as a list of common green home terms, and links to dozens of EPA Web sites with more specific information on a wide variety of green home topics.

For more information: http://www.epa.gov/greenhomes

The trickle of reports released in the past week has officially grown to a flood.

GreenerBuildings.com last week released its Green Building Market and Impact Report for 2009, the second-annual look at how LEED-certified facilities are affecting energy, water and land use and employee productivity.

Soon thereafter, Jones Lang LaSalle released the results of its third annual survey on real estate and sustainability. The study, which we covered earlier this week, found that building owners are still highly likely to invest in greening the buildings they own, if less likely to do so for rented facilities.

Now that Greenbuild is officially underway (you can read all our coverage at GreenerBuildings.com/Greenbuild2009), there are even more reports hitting the wires today.

This report, released during Greenbuild 2009, is the seventh in an annual series created by Building Design + Construction Magazine looking at impacts in the green buildings market. This report explores how water use and water conservation pose daunting challenges to building owners and the environment.

Architectural design firm Perkins+Will has created a list of 25 chemicals that are commonly used in the building industry but also pose a number of health threats to humans and the environment.

With its new Perkins+Will Precautionary List, the firm is hoping to educate designers, architects and others in the world of buildings about the chemicals, their dangers and alternatives. Perkins+Will is also hoping that the list, which will grow over time, will spur the creation of alternatives where they currently do not exist.

Green healthcare design promotes a healing environment through natural daylight, improved ventilation, better indoor air quality, outdoor views, healing gardens, efficient lighting, low-impact materials and furnishings, and a relaxed atmosphere.

Learn how Building Teams are incorporating these concepts into the design of three major hospitals in San Francisco, all tracking to achieve LEED-NC Gold:

• A 555-bed nonprofit, California Pacific Medical Center Hospital at Cathedral Hill
• A 289-bed university teaching facility, UCSF Medical Center at Mission Bay
• A 284-bed public institution, San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, owned by the City and County of San Francisco

And if wind power isn’t enough of a draw, how about bowling, vintage arcade games and lots of craft beer?

Owens Corning is teaming up with one of the country’s largest environmental services companies for a new program aimed at reducing the amount of used asphalt roofing shingles sent to landfills.

Owens Corning will introduce its national shingle recycling program in the Midwest before rolling it out to the rest of the U.S. The company’s Preferred Roofing Contractors who pledge to recycle their shingle tear-offs will be able to take them to drop-off recycling and processing centers provided by Heritage Environmental Services. Rollout of the program will depend on participation and reaction from contractors and homeowners.

Fortune Data Centers’ San Jose facility earned the prestigious LEED Gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council last week, six months after opening the green facility.

With the certification, Fortune Data Centers has joined a very small number of LEED-rated data centers; the company estimated that it is one of only five such buildings in the United States.

The eight-megawatt data center can also brag a gold-star tenant: internet phenomenon Facebook confirmed that it is leasing some of the floor space in the facility, part of an ongoing expansion for the website, all of which has gone to green data centers, according to Data Center Knowledge.

The United States’ first voluntary rating system for sustainable landscapes launched last week, a development its creators hope will do for the landscaping sector what LEED did for the building industry.

The American Society of Landscape Architects, Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center and the U.S. Botanic Garden partnered to develop the rating system as part of the Sustainable Sites Initiative, which they plan to test through a series of pilot projects over the next two years.

Seventy-four percent of corporate real estate executives now say they would be willing to pay a premium to retrofit the office space they own to achieve sustainability goals, a new survey has found.

“Runoff from parking lots and driveways is a significant source of water pollution in the United States and puts undo stress on our water infrastructure, especially in densely-populated urban areas,” said EPA Acting Regional Administrator George Pavlou. “By evaluating different designs and materials, this study will help us develop strategies to lessen the environmental impacts of parking lots across the country and make our communities more sustainable.”

This summer, EPA replaced a 43,000-square-foot section of the parking lot at its Edison facility with three different types of permeable pavement and planted several rain gardens with varying vegetation for the study. Over the next decade, EPA will evaluate the effectiveness of each pavement type and the rain gardens in removing pollutants from stormwater, and how they help water filter back into the ground. The parking lot will be functional during the study to accurately evaluate how the different types of pavement handle traffic and vehicle-related pollution like leaking oil.

Stormwater runoff is generated when precipitation from rain and snow flows over land or impervious surfaces, like parking lots or rooftops, and does not readily flow back into the ground. As the runoff flows over the land or impervious surfaces, it accumulates debris, chemicals, sediment or other pollutants that could adversely affect water quality if the runoff discharged is not properly treated.

This study is part of an effort by EPA’s National Risk Management Research Laboratory to evaluate permeable pavement as it relates to stormwater management practices on a national scale. While the installation of permeable pavement systems has become more prevalent, there is a lack of full-scale, outdoor, real-world permeable pavement research projects.

EPA also recognizes the potential of rain gardens as a green infrastructure management tool to lessen the effects of peak flows on aquatic resources. While local governments and homeowners are building many of these systems, relatively few studies have quantified the ability of rain gardens to allow the ground to better absorb and filter stormwater, which reduces peak flows.

For more information on how EPA manages and regulates stormwater, visit http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/home.cfm?program_id=6.

Let’s start this off with a quick clarification. When I say “LED light”, I’m not talking about the nifty, little blinky things that are frequently part of the ingredients list in Make projects. I’m talking about the Big Show: An LED light that can replace the incandescent bulbs and/or CFLs you have lighting up your home right now. To do it right, you don’t just need a single LED that works, you need an array of them…and you need them to produce enough light, and the right color of light, reliably enough that people can buy an LED bulb and know what they’re getting into.That ain’t easy. But it is getting easier.

Trouble is, they’re being oversold, like whoa. For about two-and-a-half years, I’ve been reporting on LED lighting for a trade magazine called Architectural SSL*. During that time, I’ve watched mainstream press and enviro blogs tout LEDs as the green energy miracle light. Often, with a level of enthusiasm seldom seen outside rooms full of puppies. Don’t get me wrong. LEDs are pretty cool. There are places where they’re useful now, and places they probably will be soon. But if you’re just hearing about the awesome, you aren’t getting the full story. And, as more LED products start showing up on store shelves, that really starts to matter.

Join me, won’t you, as we put on our Sober Assessment Goggles and take a peek at the current state of light bulb of the tomorrow…

When it comes to building or renovating a home, there are few simple choices. From styles and colors to location and design, there’s an awful lot to consider. Thankfully, you don’t have to settle for materials that have big-time negative impact on the planet. Here to help is the Green Materials Guide, over on our sister site, Planet Green, which has eight robust sections to help guide you through the process of finding green materials for every green project in your home.

The EPA awards recognize student and professional designs for buildings and building projects, as well as special categories, including the creation of green jobs.

“These cutting edge designs are part of a new innovative trend in environmental protection,” said Jeff Scott, the EPA’s Waste Management Division director for the Pacific Southwest region. “Lifecycle building strategies will help all of us get the most possible out of our natural resources and ultimately save money.”

Lifecycle building emphasizes designing buildings to facilitate disassembly and material reuse to minimize waste, energy consumption, and associated greenhouse gas emissions. Also known as design for disassembly and design for deconstruction, lifecycle building creates high-performance buildings today that are stocks of resources for the future. The EPA recently reported that doubling the reuse and recycling of construction and demolition debris, would result in an emissions savings of 150 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent per year, equal to the entire annual carbon emissions from the state of North Carolina.

The EPA, along with its partners, the American Institute of Architects, West Coast Green, the Collaborative for High Performance Schools, and stopwaste.org, invited professionals and students nationwide to submit designs and ideas that support cost-effective disassembly and anticipate future use of building materials. The competition was open to architects, reuse experts, engineers, designers, planners, contractors, builders, educators, environmental advocates and students. This year, the competition was extended to include international participants who hailed from Singapore, Taiwan, Argentina, Columbia, France, Egypt and the United Kingdom.

The winning designs were recently featured at a poster session at West Coast Green, the largest conference on green innovation for the built environment.

See the winning designs at http://www.lifecyclebuilding.org/2009/winners.php.

Contemporary design may have slowed this year as result of tightened budgets, but tough times call for innovation, quality, and efficiency. Recognizing the value of these characteristics, The Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and The European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies are on the hunt for the year’s best and greenest designs for the 2010 Green Good Design Awards.

A study released by the University of San Diego and CBRE reveals that employees in a green building are more productive than their counterparts in a standard building.

The Rocky Mountain Institute has created a new tool to help people understand how their buildings use carbon and what they can do to reduce emissions from building projects. RMI provided a walkthrough of its Green Footstep assessment tool at the institute’s recent symposium in San Francisco.

Employees working in green buildings (defined as being LEED-certified at any level or bearing the Energy Star label) are more productive than those working in non-green buildings, according to a study by the University of San Diego’s Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate and real estate services company CB Richard Ellis. Researchers surveyed more than 500 tenants in 154 green buildings managed by CBRE nationwide. The majority of the buildings surveyed were midtown or suburban, and 94 percent of them were multi-tenant. Under the microscope across the board: employee measured sick days and self-reported productivity changes after moving into a new building.

Filmmaker Mario Van Peebles, along with his family, takes a lighthearted approach to going “green” in a new reality television show on cable network TV One. “Mario’s Green House” follows the Van Peebles as they try to build a home that’s environmentally friendly. Mario Van Peebles describes the project and spreading the green message within communities of color.

The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center cut the ribbon on the space administration’s newest LEED building this week — a green building with a white roof and black walls in labs.

The Department of Energy’s new label for LED lighting products looks a lot like the food nutrition label on your favorite box of cereal. It was created to give a quick summary of performance data – such as light output and color – and, ideally, to help prevent poor quality products from spoiling the nascent LED market.

The trouble is, the label’s use is not always legitimate.

Since the agency launched its “Lighting Facts” program in December 2008, there have been 25 cases of label misuse, according to James Brodrick, the manager of solid state lighting at the Department of Energy.

The Empire State Building seems to be grappling with a color problem — specifically the color of its upper levels.

Building management got into hot water this week over plans to illuminate the top floors with red lights — in honor of the 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. Tibet-issues activists and other protesters turned out to denounce the recognition.

But it turns out the color the building’s owners really want associated with the Manhattan landmark is green — which may be an achievable goal, after a $550 million environmental upgrade and renovation.

Improving the Energy Performance of Buildings: Learning from the European Union and Australia
Source: RAND Corporation
From press release:

The United States can become more energy efficient and create more “green” jobs by adopting some of the strategies used by the European Union and Australia to rate and disclose the performance of commercial and government-owned buildings, according to a new RAND Corporation study issued today.

The study finds that wealthier countries use more than a third of their energy to heat, cool and illuminate buildings, but not always efficiently. Recent steps taken by the European Union and Australia to inspect, rate and publicly disclose the energy efficiency of buildings indicate the buildings use less energy and are worth more when sold or leased.

The buildings sector has unique characteristics that make design of energy efficiency policies particularly challenging: transactions are infrequent, capital costs are high, and the variablility of design and siting makes energy efficiency comparisons difficulty. Often, owners must bear the costs of efficiency improvements while costs savings are obtained by tenants.

Construction material entrepreneurs discussed efforts to create more environmentally friendly cement and other building products at a conference in California.

Philips has the first entry in an Energy Department contest to build a more efficient 60-watt light bulb.

Working with 11 education and environmental groups, the U.S. Green Building Council has formed the Coalition for Green Schools to launch the third year of its campaign to make America’s classrooms more eco-friendly and healthier for students and teachers.

Need to make a business case for building green or undertaking green retrofits? Or maybe you’re a building owner mulling whether it’s worth the effort to make your property more environmentally sound.

Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company provides a list of the benefits of doing so — and the risks associated with doing nothing. The list is a handy reference for experienced players and newcomers to green building.

The building envelope is the top priority when designing and engineering green schools.

A cousin of the still-evolving LED bulb is the organic light-emitting diode, which can give light from a sheet 0.07 inches thick.

Mayor Richard Daley wants to make Chicago the greenest city in America. By one measure, he’s done it. Chicago now has more certified green buildings than any other city in the country, according to figures from the U.S. Green Building Council.

When I mention the words “high-rise office building” what do you think of? Probably an enclosed glass and steel box, stripped of detail, perfect in its photogenic, modernist simplicity.

Perhaps, like me, you also imagine its occupants: hunched at their desks, panting for fresh air and light, mesmerized by the hum of overhead fluorescent fixtures gone buggy. In fact, our cultural understanding of “high-rise” seems to include its occupants being divorced from their natural surroundings, sequestered in a technologically advanced, artificial environment.

A lot of us have been wondering just how advanced our current model really is.

Mick Pearce is an African architect who has tried to change that model, demonstrating his ideas in two signature buildings, the Eastgate Building in Harare, Zimbabwe, and the Council House 2 Building in Melbourne, Australia. Both buildings employ common-sense passive systems for climate control based on gradients, and both were inspired by the work of a tiny insect, the termite.

Working with William McDonough + Partners and Swinerton Builders, NASA’s Ames Research Center broke ground this week on what is planned as a state-of-the-art, 50,000-square-foot green office building.

Ashley McGraw Architects is designing a new 4,100 square foot media center addition at Liverpool Middle School which will generate as much energy each year as it uses. To accomplish this net zero-energy outcome, the team is combining new design tools and thinking with a measure of mid 20th century architectural inspiration.

“Using our energy modeling software, we developed a combined passive solar heating and natural daylighting system we call the split Trombe wall,” says Peter Larson, principal of Ashley McGraw`s Advanced Building Studio. “This wall system will capture and store the sun`s heat and release it over time within the media canter, which will reduce heating cost by 50 percent and lighting cost by 75 percent.”

Making existing buildings more sustainable is critical to achieving large-scale environmental benefits. Sustainability initiatives in existing buildings also promote significant business benefits, ranging from enhanced productivity to operational savings. But how can an institution effectively evaluate its sustainability options and focus its “green” dollars where they will have the greatest effect?

Early proponents of sustainable-design strategies provided facilities that are fulfilling their promise to save energy and improve education.

In January 2008, the Michigan State University Board of Trustees authorized the creation of a new recycling facility to be located west of Farm Lane in the service district, which will triple the amount of materials currently being recycled. A new comprehensive recycling program, coupled with the new facility, will allow the university to expand recycling collection in all buildings. Currently 14 percent of the white and mixed office paper, newspaper, cardboard and plastics are diverted from the landfill through the recycling program and the capture rate of these five materials is projected to double by 2010.

Currently, MSU ships all of the recycled material it collects in loose boxes that have to be processed by whoever recieves them. The new facility will enable materials to be sorted and shipped in bulk. By processing the materials at MSU, they can be sold at a higher price to recycling facilities.

Find out more from the New Facility FAQ, including a map of where the facility is located.

The White House will be going green as the administration considers LEED certification.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) has made more than $1.6 million available through the Multifamily Performance Program to the Schenectady Municipal Housing Authority (SMHA) as part of a comprehensive statewide energy reduction plan. Following an efficiency upgrade, SMHA will reduce energy use by more than 20 percent in six of its apartment complexes, which is expected to save SMHA nearly $480,000 annually. The NYSERDA initiative is part of Governor David A. Paterson’s ‘45 by 15’ plan to meet 45 percent of the State’s electricity needs through efficiency and renewable resources by 2015.

With the summer drawing to a close, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn signed new legislation into law Friday creating statewide minimum energy efficiency standards for new homes. The new standards are intended to save Illinois families money on energy costs, reduce energy waste and cut carbon emissions.

The product of years of negotiations, House Bill 3987, the Energy Efficient Building Act, brings Illinois in line with the latest International Energy Conservation Code for new residential construction, updated automatically every three years. The measure expands the existing Energy Efficient Commercial Building Act first enacted in 2004 to cover both commercial and residential buildings.

The EU will start making the transition from power-draining lightbulbs to more energy efficient ones Tuesday, the European Commission said.

Several nations including Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the Philippines have already announced they will phase out or restrict sales of traditional bulbs as well. In 2007, President George W. Bush signed a bill that calls for the bulb to be phased out in the U.S. beginning in 2012.

• Full Report [PDF]
• Summary Presentation & Supplementary Information[PPT - 22mb] [PDF - 5mb]
• Data Call
• Data collection instrument
• Engineering and economic assumptions

This report provides the world’s largest database of commissioning case studies for new and existing buildings. It represents a major update and expansion of a study initially published in 2004, with roughly three-times as many projects. We gathered and analyzed data on 643 buildings, representing 99 million square feet of floor space from 26 states. The database incorporates the work of 37 commissioning providers.

Commissioning maximizes the quality and persistence of energy, cost, and emissions reductions. The process ensures that building owners get what they pay for when constructing or retrofitting buildings, provides risk-management and “insurance” for policymakers and program managers enabling their initiatives to actually meet targets, and detects and corrects problems that would eventually surface as far more costly maintenance or safety issues.

This report responds to a widely held concern that end-users do not have confidence in the nature and level of energy savings that can be achieved through the commissioning process. It addresses this issue by assembling diverse case studies and previously unpublished data, and developing performance benchmarks using standardized assumptions. The results demonstrate that commissioning is arguably the single-most cost-effective strategy for reducing energy, costs, and greenhouse-gas emissions in buildings today.

Key findings:

• Median commissioning costs: $0.30 and $1.16 per square foot for existing buildings and new construction, respectively (and 0.4% of total construction costs for new buildings)
• Median whole-building energy savings: 16% and 13%
• Median payback times: 1.1 and 4.2 years
• Median benefit-cost ratios: 4.5 and 1.1
• Cash-on-cash returns: 91% and 23%
• Very considerable reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions were achieved, at a negative cost of -$110 and -$25/tonne CO2-equivalent.
• High-tech buildings are particularly cost-effective, and saved large amounts of energy and emissions due to their energy-intensiveness.
• Projects employing a comprehensive approach to commissioning attained nearly twice the overall median level of savings, and five-times the savings of projects with a constrained approach.
• Non-energy benefits are extensive and often offset part or all of the commissioning cost.
• Limited multi-year post-commissioning data indicate that savings often persistent for a period of at least five years.
• Uniformly applying our median whole-building energy-savings value to the stock of U.S. non-residential buildings yields an energy-savings potential of $30 billion by the year 2030, and annual greenhouse gas emissions reductions of about 340 megatons of CO2 each year. An industry equipped to deliver these benefits would have a sales volume of $4 billion per year and support approximately 24,000 jobs.

“Commissioning America” in a decade is an ambitious goal, but achievable and consistent with this country’s aspirations to simultaneously address energy and environmental issues while creating jobs and stimulating sustainable economic activity.