• Green standards irk (lumber) dealers. 
• A foundation for green building. 
• Finding financing for you green building project.
• Affordable housing advocates build green and inspire innovation.
• Planner says going green has its advantages.
• S.F. to have greenest building codes in the nation?
• 67% of consumers willing to pay for green power.
• One writer finds it’s not easy building green.

There’s major action in the data center world, with all sorts of facilities aiming for energy-efficient centers and LEED buildings.  Cisco, led by the undeniably approachable CEO John Chambers, is embarking on a plan to green their business.  It kind of feels like a revival of the old Japanese, waste-elimination era, but there’s progress in areas other than efficiency.  Here’s what they’re doing:

• 17,400 sf office in Chesterfield Ridge Center (St. Louis Regional Sales HQ) received LEED certification;
• Their Carbon to Collaboration Initiative aims to reduce company GHG emissions from air travel by 10 %;
• They hired Paul Marcoux, one of the founders of The Green Grid, to drive green initiatives inside and outside the company – he’s become known as the company "Green Guru." 

Yes, the greening of business is something we’re going to keep seeing.  ##

This is the San Francisco Sunset Idea House for 2007, and it's one of the first LEED Certified residential remodeled homes in the nation.  This home is unique from other Sunset Idea Houses in that it's in a dense urban area on a compact site.  There are two-units and the smaller one, which is about 1,200 sf, is reportedly on sale for $1,089,000.  No word on whether the larger, 3,600 sf unit will be for sale. 

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I’m writing this article on Chipotle, and I can’t help but think how nice a little midnight chicken burrito would taste.  I love this place.  Minimalist.  Exposed.  Clean.  And.  Green.  Ever notice the fact that no two Chipotle Restaurants look alike?  They put their restaurants in all sorts of locations, old and new.  We just got a new one in an old building, but the restaurant is nice.  It’s fantastic.  Their napkins are made of recycled content, and if my memory serves correctly, I remember reading on one of their cups that they source their beans fair trade.  But that’s not all.

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The results of the first systematic study of green buildings are in and they look good!  Specifically, the study filtered sample data to Class A office buildings larger than 200,000 sf, 5 stories or more, built since 1970, and multi- tenanted.  To compare green versus non-green, they used Energy Star and non-Energy Star buildings, and therefore, the sample contained 223 Energy Star buildings (111.7 million square feet) and 2,077 non-Energy Star buildings (889.1 million square feet).  The results: (1) HIGHER occupancy rates, (2) HIGHER rental rates, and (3) HIGHER sales prices psf for Energy Star buildings. 

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