Posts Tagged ‘U.S. Green Building Council’

New York City Starts “One Year, One Thousand Green Supers” Green Building Program

New York City plans to train one thousand superintendents on green buildings this year. City managers of commercial and high-rise residential buildings now have the chance reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the city on a sky high level.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg took part in the program, “One Year, One Thousand Green Supers” which was also approved by the U.S. Green Building Council and the Building Performance Institute. It’s also made possible by the Thomas Shortman Training Fund. This is part of NYC’s huge goal to reduce their building-generated carbon footprint.

San Francisco LEEDing the Way on Green Jobs Conversions

San Francisco Building

In the quest to create new green jobs, we have the opportunity to take existing jobs and make them green.

Every city has architects, engineers and construction divisions. In conventional circumstances the activities these employees undertake can burn considerable natural resources. But in San Francisco, we’re working to turn these traditional municipal positions into environmental champions.

Green Talk Radio: The Growing Market for Green Real Estate

GreenTalk Radio

GreenTalk Radio host Sean Daily talks about the burgeoning industry of green building and the qualities of a green real estate property with Greg Reitz, Principal and Founder of REthink Development.

[Courtesy of our friends at GreenLivingIdeas.com]

Click Play Below,Click to Continue Reading

Substance 151: Modular design systems and visual vocabularies

By contributing guest author Ida Cheinman, Principal and Creative Director of Substance 151, a strategic design agency for Green Printer’s “Design Goes Green” series.

We live in a time when “sustainability” is topping the buzzword charts and a wave of greenwashing is flooding the mainstream. We live in a time of intense competition, gloomy economic forecasts and rapidly disappearing marketing budgets, but also in a time when more and more companies and organizations strive to uphold higher environmental and social values, making the shift to the triple bottom line economic model. Sustainability and social responsibility are the forces that drive many of today’s business decisions; they also change the way organizations re-think their branding and marketing strategies. As marketers and business leaders, we are faced with the challenge of finding differentiation by creating empowering and memorable brand experiences for our audiences in the increasingly crowded sustainable marketplace.

So, What are the rules?

Red Tail Ridge Poised to be Finger Lakes’ Greenest Winery

An architectural rendering of Red Tail Ridge\'s planned winery

The rapidly growing wine industry in the Finger Lakes Region of New York has been attracting a good deal of attention for the quality of its wines. One winery is looking to make a name for itself both for its wines and its commitment to the environment.

Red Tail Ridge Winery, in Penn Yan, N.Y., will break ground this spring on a new wine making building designed to meet the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED standards. It would be the first New York winery building to earn LEED certification, according to a search of the USGBC’s online LEED project database. Husband and wife owners Mike Schnelle and Nancy Irelan opened Red Tail Ridge after moving to the region from California, where Ireland worked for Gallo wineries. Their tasting room opened in August 2007.

BrightBuilt Barn Glows Who’s Naughty, Nice

BrightBuilt Barn is putting forward an “eco-smart project” that tells who on the block — or in the woods — is energy-nice and who is using more than they generate. Green LED glow is good; red not so much.

BrightBuilt’s Web site says:

This building requires NO FURNACE, even in Maine, and provides owners with real-time, easily understandable feedback of energy use through its “mood ring” LED fixtures. An off-the-grid option

[...]

Wells Fargo Spends $2 Billion On LEED Certified Green Buildings

Wells Fargo Shows Green Leadership By Surpassing The $2-Billion Mark With LEED Certified Financing.

Wells Fargo has passed the $2 billion mark in lending for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED®) certified buildings. Maybe not too surprising, the bank was one of the first to be LEED pre-certified for New Construction.

Nusta Spa in Washington, D.C. was the First Gold Certified Green Day Spa in the United States

Nusta Spa in Washington, D.C., was our nation’s first day spa to achieve gold certification back in 2004. They were quickly accepted into the (LEED) Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design pilot program. This voluntary rating system is consensus-based, and was created by the U.S. Green Building Council to define and measure the official standards for the environmentally responsible building of commercial interiors, and gold certification is the best.

Some of the eco features are:

  • All printed materials use eco-friendly paper and ink.
  • Spa feautres a wall that is made from salvaged wood of a former barn.
  • Nusta has carpeting with more than 50% recycled content.
  • Energy efficient HVAC system and lighting installed.
  • They carry eco-friendly product lines.
  • Their maple flooring came from a sustainable forest.
  • The locker room doors made from bamboo, which has a short harvest cycle.

Their philosophy

Advertisement