GreenClips.114 02.24.99
HENNEPIN TO SET SUSTAINABILITY STANDARDS
The Hennepin County, Minnesota Board of Commissioners hopes that its newly constructed public works facility near Minneapolis will be a beacon for sustainable design. Though it's the place from which 300 employees service the county's 1,000 vehicles, 40,000 road signs, 700 traffic signals, and 571 miles of highway, the 242,000-square-foot structure inconspicuously hugs the surrounding natural prairie. The building is constructed largely of recycled materials including remanufactured paint, recycled tires and plastics in the floors, and a mixture of asphalt and recycled glass for the parking lot paving. An in-house treatment plant recycles waste water for flushing toilets and washing vehicles. Passive solar design helps save on heating costs. The building's initial cost of $25 million ran 10 percent higher than normal construction [three percent is the correct figure, says the county's Greg Karr], but the county expects long-run savings. The Board of Commissioners [has just adopted] a resolution to prepare a design guide for future county projects. "We're trying to create a market for sustainability," says commissioner Peter McLaughlin. Designed by Architectural Alliance of Minneapolis, the public works building recently won an honor award from the American Institute of Architects Minnesota. [For more on the public works facility and the resolution, visit <http://www.co.hennepin.mn.us/envsvcs/sustarch.htm>]. - Minneapolis Star Tribune editorial, 9 Feb 99.
HOTELS CAN LOWER ENVIRONMENTAL COST OF TRAVEL
Greener business travel options are growing, aided in part by accelerating efforts to improve the eco-efficiency of the hotel and motel industry. The US eco-labeling group Green Seal has partnered with Green Globe, an environmental awareness project of the World Travel and Tourism Council, to certify US hotels based on seven environmental criteria. Hotels can display both the Green Seal and Green Globe logos if they meet standards [on waste minimization, reuse, and recycling; energy efficiency, conservation, and management; management of fresh water resources; waste water management; hazardous substances; environmentally sensitive purchasing policy; and social and cultural development.] Green Seal also recently launched a demonstration project to evaluate the potential for eco-efficiency improvements at hotels. The project will involve hotels' supply-chain partners like travel agents and suppliers of maintenance and energy products. Green Seal is working with Marriott and other chains to document the economic and environmental benefits and plans to disseminate the results. For more information, email Green Seal's Mark Petruzzi <mpetruzzi@greenseal.org>. Meanwhile, billed as the first "environmentally smart hotel," the Sheraton Rittenhouse Square Hotel recently opened in downtown Philadelphia. Emphasizing indoor air quality, the hotel includes a 40-foot-high bamboo garden designed to filter dirty air; high-tech allergen filters also trap minute air particles. The Sheraton's beds use 100 percent organically grown cotton; mattresses and covers are bleach-free and dye-free. The hotel also features floors made from recycled granite and night tables made from recycled pallets. - The Green Business Letter, Feb 99, p 1.
ECOSCAN 2.0: AFFORDABLE, USER-FRIENDLY LCA SOFTWARE
Designers and manufacturers can assess the environmental impact of their products using low-cost Life Cycle Assessment software from The Netherlands - EcoScan 2.0 from TurtleBay, ECO-it from Pre, and IDEMAT from Delft University of Technology. These LCA applications examine existing or new products, processes, or activities in their life cycle stages - production, use, and disposal, plus transportation impact. Each package uses a common method called Eco-indicators developed by the Dutch government, industry, and academics. This method predicts the effect of a product's life cycle on ozone layer depletion, heavy metals, carcinogens, smog, pesticides, greenhouse effect, eutrophication, and acidification. The method considers the relative importance of each effect by applying standard weighting factors. The basic principles of EcoScan 2.0 are easy to learn. Analyzing anything from a lemon squeezer to an architectural plan begins with filling out a Product Life Cycle form to specify materials, manufacturing processes, energy consumption, disposal method, and transportation. The sum of the Eco-indicators provides a quick comparison with different designs or related products. What the Eco- indicator point scores don't consider are important environmental factors like raw material depletion, renewable resources, waste production, landscape degradation, and toxic emissions. Nor do they analyze how to improve a design to lower its environmental impact. For more on EcoScan, visit <http://www.luna.nl/turtlebay>. - Eco Design, Vol VI, No 3, p 38, by Alastair Fuad-Luke.
SHAW OFFERS FULLY RECYCLABLE CARPET TILE
Shaw Contract's new EcoSolution Q is a recycled-content nylon yarn that - when used with Shaw's new 100-percent recyclable, non-PVC backing called Ecoworx - makes a fully recyclable carpet tile. Old EcoSolution Q yarn will be used for injection-molded automotive parts; used Ecoworx will be melted down for new backing. The proprietary Type 6 EcoSolution Q yarn contains at least 25 percent post-consumer and post-industrial nylon waste. Shaw makes the yarn by recycling its used face fibers into pellets that it refabricates into solution-dyed yarn. EcoSolution Q has the same easy maintenance and antimicrobial properties of virgin nylon, but requires much less water to produce. Shaw Industries currently recycles 75 percent of its production waste - 135 million pounds [annually] - into new products. [For more on Shaw's environmental initiatives, visit <http://www.shawcontract.com/recycling/index.html>.] - Interiors, Jan 99, p 28, by Katherine Day Sutton.
UK TRIES ENVIRONMENTALLY SENSITIVE TELECOM MASTS
Telecom masts and electricity pylons are ever-present eyesores to countryside dwellers in the UK who often grudgingly see the impact of technology on the environment as a necessary evil. Not necessarily so, say some of the larger telecom companies who have been exploring ways to either reduce the impact of their equipment or design it as a positive addition to the natural landscape. In October British telecom company Orange announced the winners of its Millennium Landmark Initiative design competition. "We're moving into an era where technology is moving more into the natural order," says Brian Hanson, director of the Prince of Wales' Projects Office, "using organic forms and new materials rather than the hard lines that were the Modernist view of technology earlier in the century." The more than 600 entries, including some elegantly sculptural responses, bring a range of ideas that could feed future telecom designs. Meanwhile, separately from the Orange competition, the engineering firm Ove Arup is working with artist Andrew Darke and his group Place to develop an environmentally sensitive prototype mast called Aspire to Clear Horizons. The design is a cone-shaped frame from which the antennae and dishes hang. The mast could incorporate environmentally responsible materials that change color according to the temperature or be completely disguised by training plants to grow up the frame. [For more about the Millennium Landmark Initiative and the competition winners, visit <http://www.uk.orange.net/millennium/index.html>]. - Design, A Journal of the Design Council, Winter 98-99, p 45, by Jessica Cargill Thompson.
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ENVIRONDESIGN3 http://www.isdesignet.com EnvironDesign3, slated for April 29 to May 1, 1999 in Baltimore, MD, is the premier conference on sustainable design and building practices for designers and architects. Workshops provide endless learning opportunities and concrete solutions to many of the practical challenges faced when exploring sustainable design issues. Keynotes include presentations by "Ishmael" author Daniel Quinn, architect Bill McDonough, the World Resource Institute's Allen Hammond, David Pearson, founder of the Ecological Design Association and David Gottfried, president of Gottfried Technology. Visit with manufacturers in the Product Learning Center to learn more about their environmental products and initiatives. In three short days, you will be exposed to a multitude of new ideas, break-through research and passionate encouragement that will change your life, change your aspirations, change your career . . . forever. Produced by Interiors & Sources magazine; co-hosted by the US Green Building Council. Call 561 627 3393 or visit <http://www.isdesignet.com>.
US DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY http://www.eren.doe.gov/buildings DOE's Office of Building Technology, State and Community Programs (BTS) is proving that highly energy efficient homes can be built at a cost comparable to conventional homes. BTS' Building America program plans to build 2000 of these homes by the year 2000 - homes that use 30% to 50% less energy than conventional homes. Building America also helps home builders reduce construction time and waste by up to 50%, and provides opportunities for new efficient building products to enter the marketplace. Another BTS program, the Buildings for the 21st Century Lecture Series, offers talks on building efficiency at the National Building Museum in Washington, DC. More information on BTS' efficient building programs is available on DOE's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Network website <http://www.eren.doe.gov/buildings> or by calling 800 DOE 3732.
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ABOUT THE PUBLISHER Architectural researcher and environmental consultant Chris Hammer of Sustainable Design Resources publishes GreenClips in San Francisco. Ms. Hammer helps planners, developers, building owners, designers, builders, and facility managers practice sustainable planning, development, building design, construction, and operation. GreenClips is written by Chris Hammer and James Richert.
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