GreenClips.76 07.16.97 TAHOE RECONCILES TOURISM AND THE ENVIRONMENT On July 26 and 27, Lake Tahoe will host a summit of environmentalists, business people, and local, state, and federal officials including President Clinton and Vice President Gore to discuss how business and regulators can cooperate to protect the environment there. The Tahoe Summit will address water quality, forest health, transportation, and tourism. A five-hour drive northeast from San Francisco, Lake Tahoe's tremendous size and clarity distinguish an area that is increasingly car-centric and congested. Placer County, California adopted the North Lake Tahoe Tourism Development Plan in 1995 to restore the resort's sense of place and environmental sensitivity. Landscape architect Rebecca Zimmermann with Denver-based Design Workshop and others developed the TDP. Linking the area's vitality to the health of its ecosystems and the preservation of open space, the TDP calls for, among other things, increasing mass transit and bikeways to clean the air and reconstructing wetlands to filter pollutants from runoff and maintain the lake's clarity. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency director Steve Wynn, master developer of Las Vegas megacasinos, is likely to play a substantial role at the summit. Wynn convinced the agency's board last month to ban Jet Skis to protect the lake's waters from unburned fuel. Last fall, he marshalled support for a $20 million state bond issue for erosion-control projects on the Nevada side of the lake. Erosion caused by development sends soil and runoff into the lake, nourishing algae that further clouds the water. Some question how a developer as dedicated as Mr. Wynn could suddenly reveal a deep green streak, but some environmentalists are glad to have a businessman of his power on their side. — The New York Times, July 6, 1997, p. 1 Section 3, by Jon Christensen, and Metropolis, July/August 1997, p. 64, by Michael Leccese. CHOOSE GREEN OFFICE FURNITURE The $10 billion office furniture industry damages the environment by contributing to natural resource depletion, VOC emissions, and landfilled waste. The environmental product labeling organization Green Seal recommends eight furniture products and five refurbishers in its latest Choose Green Report. The report urges buyers to select refurbished furniture instead of new, if possible, to extend its useful life and reduce material sent to landfills. Environmentally responsible refurbishers recycle used fabric, aluminum, and steel, replace old fabric with recycled-content fabric, and use water-based or powder coated finishes — a technique that doesn't use heavy metals or emit VOCs. Refurbished furniture costs 25 to 70 percent less than comparable new furniture. Visit the Office Furniture Recycler's Forum web site for more information, http://www.recyclefurn.org. Some new furniture makers are also doing the right things environmentally. Look for powder coated finishes on metal office furniture and avoid metal plated products, especially those using hexavalent chromium [CrVI]. Choose wood office furniture made with certified woods or fiberboard from agricultural waste or recycled paper. For upholstered products specify fabrics made from recycled, recyclable, reusable, or biodegradable materials and dyed using efficient processes like solution dying. Avoid polyurethane foams blown with HCFCs. For more information about Green Seal call 202.588.8400, or visit its web site, http://www.greenseal.org. — Choose Green Report, July 1997. UVA LAUNCHES INSTITUTE OF SUSTAINABLE DESIGN In April the University of Virginia launched the Institute of Sustainable Design, a think tank that will sponsor interdisciplinary research within the university. Based at its School of Architecture, the Institute is "a place that will explore strategies of change based on ecological and economical principles as well principles of justice," says Dean William McDonough. The Institute is assembling teams from the university's schools of architecture, engineering, business, law, and medicine to look at all aspects of environmental problems from energy consumption and health effects to product liability and cost. The School of Nursing, for example, will imagine a sustainable hospital that provides quality health care, disposes of product packaging and hazardous waste in ecologically and economically sensitive ways, and addresses the impact of the environment on public health. Sponsoring a number of regional design initiatives, the Institute hopes to shape the Virginia Piedmont into a model of sustainability. It plans to open an off-campus Design Resource Center where local residents could learn about new practices and review regional development proposals. [For more information visit http://minerva.acc.virginia.edu/~sustain/.] — Landscape Architecture, July 1997, p. 148, by John Beardsley. GREEN HOMEBUILDING GUIDE Architect John Hermannsson has aimed his new Green Building Resource Guide mainly at homebuilders. Each of the nearly 600 product listings includes a brief product description, icons representing categories of environmental benefit, contact information for the manufacturer, and a cost comparison with its most likely conventional alternative. Icons identify nontoxic, recycled-content, resource efficient, long life-cycle, and environmentally conscious products. Offering a quick cost comparison for choosing a green item, the price index is perhaps the Guide's most useful feature. Two good indices — one by product type and another by manufacturer — help non-architects find what they're looking for. From Taunton Press, publisher of Fine Homebuilding magazine, the paperbound guide is $37.95. [For more information visit http://www.greenguide.com.] — Environmental Building News, June 1997, p. 14. SAN FRANCISCO CONSIDERS SUSTAINABILITY PLAN The Health, Family and Environment Committee of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors has unanimously endorsed a Sustainability Plan that would guide decisions of all city commissions and departments. Mayor Willie Brown fully supports the proposal and the full board is likely to pass the package. Air quality, solid waste, biodiversity, and food and agriculture are among the 10 major topics of the 150-page plan. The plan's transportation suggestions include creating 10 auto-free zones over the next four years, increasing the city parking tax, raising gasoline taxes and bridge tolls, and introducing "congestion pricing" charges for driving at rush hour. San Francisco joins Santa Monica, California and Chattanooga, Tennessee as the only American cities with extensive environmental plans, more common in other countries. Separately, San Francisco may become the first city in the world to ban the use of ancient redwood in city-owned buildings and parks. Supervisor Leslie Katz hopes to amend a 1990 city ordinance banning the purchase and use of tropical hardwoods to include virgin redwood. — Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce, July 11, 1997; San Francisco Chronicle, July 10, 1997, p. 1, by Edward Epstein and Glen Martin; and San Francisco Examiner, July 12, 1997, by Jane Kay.