Organizations & Programs
Built Green™ Canada is industry driven voluntary program that promotes building practices to reduce the impact that building has on the environment. As of Fall 2009, Built Green™ is available in Alberta and BC. For reference, the current features checklist is available for download. Site also has some case studies and list of builder members.
The Carbon Neutral Design Project is a joint effort by the AIA, members of AIA Committee on the Environment (COTE), and the Society of Building Science Educators (SBSE) to produce educational and resource materials for carbon neutral design. This partnership with the academy has capitalized on the expertise of building science educators and practitioners to produce this peer reviewed, web-ready content on carbon neutral design.
The initial phase of the Project uses reducing the carbon emissions for the operating energy of the building as a starting point. Operating energy has been selected over embodied energy as it represents the major contribution to the carbon emissions of a building, and is the focus of the 2030 Challenge. Practices, protocols and tools to reduce the carbon associated with embodied energy will form the focus of subsequent research associated with this project.
The link is to the definitions page, which is extremely helpful in discerning the differences between 'green', LEED, Zero Energy and Carbon Neutral Design. The carbon calculator section of the site is excellent, with a thorough introduction, a survey of carbon calculator tools and a list of energy calculator tools including LCA tools, solar energy tools and physical modelling tools.
Note: This is a beta site, run through the University of Waterloo. The URL is likely to change. www.architecture.uwaterloo.ca/faculty_projects/terri/carbon-aia/carbon_definition.html
The Pharos Project is a materials evaluation tool used by green building and procurement professionals. The goal is to establish a method of mapping a 360° view of green material attributes , putting manufacturer's claims in context and testing them against verifiable
data and a community consensus of ideal goals. There is a database, a 'Lens' and a wiki to which users can add information about products.
The 'Lens' is a web-type chart made up of color-coded wedges to differentiate levels of performance in each of three sectors: 1) environment and resources, 2) health and pollution, and 3) social and community. Other tools of this sort are not based on open source software.
From the FAQ page: The assessment of building materials is marked by scientific information that is often missing, highly controversial, or supplied directly by manufacturers with a profit stake in its outcome. Open Source sharing, development and critique can help improve our
collective understanding of the quality and availability of scientific data and help us make informed decisions where scientific data is missing or controversial.
Healthy Building Network
Centre for Clean Products (University of Tennessee, Knoxville)
Cascadia Green Building Council
"Green economicsis the economics of the real world—the world of work, human needs, the Earth’s materials, and how they mesh together most harmoniously. It is primarily about “use-value”, not “exchange-value” or money. It is about quality, not quantity for the sake of it. It is about regeneration---of individuals, communities and ecosystems--- not about accumulation, of either money or material."
This site features the writing of Brian Milani, co-founder of the Toronto’s Eco-Materials Project, writer & teacher at York University's Faculty of Environmental Studies (among other venues). He is author of the book "Designing the Green Economy".
We first linked to this site because of a thesis paper entitled "Building Materials in a Green Economy: Community-based Strategies for Dematerialization" that Milani wrote in 2001. But there is a lot of good stuff on this site!
PV CYCLE was founded in July 2007 to implement the photovoltaic industry’s commitment to set up a voluntary take back and recycling programme for end-of-life-modules and to take responsibility for PV modules throughout their entire value chain.
Tennessee Valley Authority's (TVA) Energy Right Program
From 2002 to 2005, the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), (utility serving Tennessee, parts of Kentucky, Mississippi and Alabama) and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory built five zero energy homes in Lenoir City, Tennessee, through the Habitat for Humanity program. As each new home was built, the lessons learned from the earlier homes were incorporated into the design to produce even greater energy savings. The goal of a fully sustainable zero-energy home has not yet been reached but should be attainable for new homes within a few years.
In 2006, power costs for one of the houses — with two occupants, 1,200 square feet, a 2.2- kilowatt photovoltaic system, and a 17 SEER air source heat pump — were only $0.41 a day.
For three weeks in October, the U.S. Department of Energy hosts the biennial Solar Decathlon—a competition in which 20 teams of college and university students compete to design, build, and operate the most attractive, effective, and energy-efficient solar-powered house. The Solar Decathlon is also an event to which the public is invited to observe the powerful combination of solar energy, energy efficiency, and the best in home design. The 'Solar Village' is assembled on the National Mall in Washington, DC.
Ecoseed is a global green online portal focused on the Green commerce growth sector, providing news and financial data coverage, which highlight organizations that are dedicated to sustainable development, ranging from new energy alternatives to emerging technologies. Ecoseed covers traditional exchange markets, but also emerging markets such as carbon exchange.The portal also serves as a a business exchange incubator that supports all types of green projects ranging from seed projects to mature technologies and a reference green library, easily accessible to students, teachers, or anyone who wishes to learn more.
Green Advisor - This site provides useful, accurate, and complete information about designing, building, and remodeling energy-efficient, sustainable, and healthy homes. An impressive team of advisors provides blogs, podcasts, articles and links to current green building technology: proven construction details, in-depth how-to advice, a green-products database, green business strategies, design tools, and alternate paths to (US) code compliance together in one place.. GBA is a product of BuildingGreen and Taunton Press, the publisher of Fine Homebuilding.
Huffington Post - Green for current US and international news about the big picture on climate change and green issues. News feeds from several outlets.
Corporate Knights - "Canada's magazine for responsible business" Monthly publication focussing on Canadian businesses that take social entrepreneurship seriously. Excellent resource!
Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) Bonds are an innovative approach to funding energy efficiency in buildings. PACE Bonds are essentially property tax lien oriented financing that dramatically improves the economics of energy retrofits (efficiency measures and micro renewable energy). A PACE bond can be issued by municipal financing districts or finance companies The proceeds of the bond are lent to commercial and residential property owners to finance energy retrofits (efficiency measures and small renewable energy systems) and who then repay their loans over 20 years via an annual assessment on their property tax bill. It is estimated that the potential for PACE bonds could exceed $500 billion in the US.
CanSIA is a federally registered not-for-profit association whose membership is comprised of individuals, companies and governments sharing an interest in solar technology. CanSIA works to strengthen the Canadian solar industry, increase the professionalism of companies, foster domestic and international markets, and promote the use of renewable energies.
PowerConnect PowerConnect provides a central location to keep up to date with the latest developments in the area of decentralized power generation in Canada. Technical and regulatory information and links concerning the implementation of distributed energy resources (DER), within the competitive electricity market, are included on this site. Sub topics include: Distributed energy resources, interconnection, standard offers, codes and standards, net metering and strategic DER research.
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