Climate Change Calculator Shared With Green Building Community
The Green Building Initiative (GBI) recently became the first organization in North America to develop a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) tool for integrating the evaluation of building assemblies in green building rating systems. GBI is offering a generic version, free of charge, to the entire sustainable construction community. Developed for use with GBI’s Green Globes™ environmental assessment and rating system for commercial buildings, this new software tool measures the global warming potential and other environmental impacts of more than 400 common building assemblies in low- and high-rise categories. It was created by Morrison Hershfield Consulting Engineers in association with the University of Minnesota’s Center for Sustainable Building Research and the Athena Sustainable Materials Institute. Organizations interested in acquiring a free copy of the LCA tool, once released, should go to www.athenasmi.ca
EPA Announces Green Building DESIGN Challenge
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, along with GreenBuildingBlocks.com, the Building Materials Reuse Association, the American Institute of Architects and West Coast Green, announce the first Lifecycle Building Challenge—a national competition to develop green building strategies and designs that reduce waste and conserve resources by facilitating adaptation, disassembly and reuse. The goal of the challenge is to inspire the green building movement to look at buildings as future stocks of resources by developing innovative practices and products to maximize material recovery and reduce both environmental and economic costs. The Lifecycle Building Challenge is seeking the nation’s architects, designers, engineers, reuse experts, and other building professionals and students to participate. Ideas that facilitate reuse, minimize waste, support disassembly and anticipate the future use of building materials are encouraged. For more information or to enter the competition, visit www.lifecyclebuilding.org.