GreenClips.34 11.08.95 BUSINESS ETHICS AWARD Xerox Corporation, Home Depot, Inc., and Odwalla Inc. won this year's BusinessEthics Awards for Excellence in Corporate Social Responsibility and Ethics. The bimonthly magazine BusinessEthics recognizes for-profit companies that demonstrate a commitment to ethics and social responsibility, integrity and fairness, benefits of ethical practices, and employee responsibility in a difficult situation. Winners also excel in overall ethics, environmentalism, community involvement, employee relations, or diversity. The magazine recognized Home Depot's superior community involvement at all levels of the company. It donated two percent of its pretax profits to community and charitable causes, and its employees volunteer thousands of hours. Home Depot was the first major retailer to carry environmentally kind lawn and garden fertilizers and pesticides. It boldly decided two years ago to no longer sell cement from kilns that burn toxic waste.  - BusinessEthics,November/December 1995, p. 30, by Dale Kurschner, and p. 36, by Susan Gaines. DAYLIT DURANT MIDDLE SCHOOL Daylighting strategies can dramatically reduce energy used for powering artificial lighting and for cooling to remove heat that lights discharge. And in schools, daylight enhances the mental and physical well-being of students and teachers. Raleigh, North Carolina architects Gary Bailey and Jill Smith oriented the new Durant Middle School along an east-west axis and placed north- and south-facing roof monitors above the classrooms, gymnasium, cafeteria, and media center. Baffles in the roof monitors spread natural light through classrooms. Low-emissivity (low-e) windows at both ends of the outside wall allow daylight to wash the sides of the rooms. Motion sensors in the cafeteria and gymnasium turn lights off when vacant. Light level sensors determine whether daylight is providing adequate illumination and adjust fluorescent lights as needed. Another recently completed, comparable Raleigh middle school uses about 77,000 BTU/sf/yr, but Bailey and Smith predict Durant's energy consumption will be 35,000 BTU/sf/yr. - Solar Today, November/December 1995, p. 36, by Burke Miller Thayer. HOLLYWOOD SPIN-OFFS A California company called Spin-Offs (310-320-7523) uses wood discarded from Hollywood sets to make dining room, bedroom, and other furniture. – The Green Business Letter, November 1995, p. 5. LAND USE AND TRANSPORTATION DEBATE Land use and transportation questions divide urban planners. Shelley Poticha of Calthorpe Associates argues that land-use patterns significantly affect travel behavior. Genevieve Giuliano, a professor at the University of Southern California, believes that land-use effects on travel are small compared to the effects of pricing changes. Both support diversifying land-use patterns. Poticha favors a Transit Oriented Development (TOD) approach. TODs concentrate jobs, moderate- and high-density housing, commercial services, and complementary public uses in developments at strategic points along a regional transit system. TOD's gridded, interconnected street patterns offer direct local access for all travelers, allowing trips to be combined and bringing many destinations within walking distance. Recent studies examined travel behavior in older, traditional-style neighborhoods with TOD characteristics and found that residents make substantially fewer than normal trips. But Giuliano argues land-use development involves many factors besides transit investment - local land-use policies, general economic climate, land availability, and local preferences for economic development. She concludes that transportation policies have limited potential to affect land use. Giuliano believes that we should aim for efficiency and social equity by recalibrating transportation and land prices. To reduce environmental damage, she thinks that we should price cars based on the true cost of automotive transportation and regulate their use. To ensure a spontaneous mixing of population, she believes we should expand the range of housing and employment choices. - On The Ground, Summer 1995, p. 11, by Shelley Poticha, and p. 12, by Genevieve Giuliano. SUMMERFIELD AT ELVERSON In 1988 the Stoltzfus family decided to develop their 180-acre family farm in western Chester County, Pennsylvania. They had several goals for Summerfield at Elverson. Their development should enhance - not burden - the quality of life for neighboring residents, maintain the region's rural character and historic architecture, become a true community and a financially successful real estate development. Including commercial lots, Summerfield has only 2.34units per acre overall, but the developer clustered homes leaving more open space and disturbing less land. Narrow, curbless, private streets reduce impervious surface coverage. A walkway system encourages walking to local services and reduces automobile traffic. Super insulated walls, low-e glazing, and natural lighting by skylights conserve energy. A residential thermal storage system lowers utility bills. Summerfield homes have low-water-use fixtures and appliances and unirrigated landscaping and lawns. During its first five years of development, Summerfield has enjoyed consistent sales despite prices about $10 per square foot higher than other new homes in the market. - Urban Land, October 1995, p. 65, by James W. Wentling.