4/25/2011

Pharos is an independent third party organization that evaluates building materials against important health, environmental and energy benchmarks.  The Pharos Building Material Library offers ways to evaluate and compare product content, certifications and other relevant data about building materials.  There is a subscription fee to access the Pharos library, but we highly recommend this site to people who want to know more about the materials we use in our built environment.

Learn more at www.pharosproject.net

5/16/2011

The American Institute of Architects Committee on the Environment (COTE) has recently named the 2011 Top Ten Green Projects for 2011!  The selected projects reflect special attention to social and behavioral issues in addition to more typical green measures such as energy, water and material efficiency.  The jurors noted that the quality and degree of innovation in green design has evolved considerably since they started the Top Ten Green Projects program.  For a list of the winning projects and links to their websites, click here.

6/14/2011

It's Spring and time for us all to get outside and enjoy nature, including the amazing variety of birds.  There is an awesome app for users of iPhone, iPad or Droid systems for the Audubon Field Guide to North American Birds.  For those of you interested in birds and their habitats, we wanted to pass along this information:  This beautiful full color Guide includes sorting functions by bird, wing shapes, location, song calls or patterns, shape, size, nesting type, habitat and many other parameters.  The song sounds have been gathered by the best audio field naturalists... an added feature that a paper-based guide cannot match.  The guide includes over 770 species, and includes range maps for summer and winter.  A portion of the sales goes to support the National Audubon Society.  For more information on this guide and many other naturalist guides for mobile devices visit www.audubonguides.com.