A few months after receiving LEED Platinum in Georgia, New World Home has now received Platinum certification for this home in Youngsville, New York.  It's the first manufactured home in New York to receive the certification and the first home of any type in the state to receive the same level of certification without needing solar panels, wind turbines, or a geothermal system.  Like the Georgia home, this one accomplishes the task with non-exotic things like tight construction, efficient mechanicals, and green materials.

Read more »

Ray Anderson is one of the most prominent business leaders in the country and his story is incredible.  Growing up, he learned to grit it out on the football field and in the classroom.  Several years later, he applied those lessons to start Interface, the world’s largest manufacturer of modular carpets.  Now, in his new book, Confessions of a Radical Industrialist, which was released late last week, Anderson challenges the business community to share a goal he set for his company: to take nothing from the earth that cannot be replaced by the earth.

If you’ve read Anderson’s previous book, Mid-course Correction, you know his story.  Anderson was tasked with giving a speech about sustainability and really didn’t have much to say.  At the same time, someone had placed a copy of Paul Hawken’s widely influential The Ecology of Commerce on his desk.  In reading this book, Anderson was hit with the magnitude of the challenge facing business.  He was also excited by the opportunity.

Read more »

We have three copies of this book, which we will give away to three random commenters at the end of Friday, September 25, 2009.*

What kind of school did you grow up learning in?  During those formative years, did you have the opportunity to learn in a sustainable and architecturally significant environment?  Think back to those days when your mind wandered.  Would you ponder the exposed woodwork?  Or the expansive windows?  Or the structural steel?  Like many students, maybe you didn't have the opportunity to learn in a green school or anything of the sort, and that's where the Green School Primer comes in.  The Green School Primer is a new book that's been written to educate anyone — whether a board member, teacher, student, or parent –  about the benefits of green schools.

Read more »