The Green Button initiative, which gives customers access to their energy consumption data, is gathering steam as three California utilities announced in January they are offering the standardized energy use data to more than 10 million customers.  The initial announcement by San Diego Gas & Electric, Southern California Edison, and Pacific Gas & Electric was followed by Glendale Power and Water, and Pepco Holdings, Inc., which said it will provide the streamlined data by summer of 2012 as it continues to deploy smart meters in its service area.

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• It’s too easy being green.
• Understanding energy-efficient lighting.
• Backcountry retreat has eco-friendly design.
• New custom homes trend toward energy efficiency.
• Florida company finds success with green building.
• Philips to cut LED prices soon.
• Greenwashing dominos.

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Oregon-based Ideabox has been on the prefab scene doing their thing in the Pacific Northwest for a long time now.  I’ve mentioned several of their homes and look forward to sharing a few newsworthy articles here in the next couple months.  As a preview, I thought I’d share a new design of the company — the Minibox.  It’s a 200 square-foot tiny house with a kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom/living area.  It’ll have IKEA cabinets and fixtures, energy-efficient appliances, and Energy Star windows.  More soon …

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Xero Flor is a lightweight green roof and system originally developed in Germany. A version was first supplied to Ford’s Dearborn Truck Plant by Xero Flor America LLC, the exclusive manufacturer and distributor here in the states, and now the company’s announcing Cradle to Cradle Silver for the technology.

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I’m fascinated by the work of Netherlands-based Dave Hakkens in a recent project called “Rubble Floor.”  Interested in reusing old building materials as new building materials — and inspired by terrazzo floors — Hakkens conducted several tests on materials such as roof tiles, bricks, nails and screws, and glass.  He used concrete as the binder and crushed old materials into pigments and fillers.  In the end, Hakkens found it’s entirely possible to make new materials with the old.

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