With a new group of online BAC courses starting this week, I’m reminded of the benefits of learning—and teaching—from home.

Cold weather, when wood stoves are cranked up and portable electric space heaters are brought out of the basement and plugged in, is when most house fires occur

A new force will be making Green Globes go ’round.

Jerry Yudelson, P.E., a LEED Fellow and a prominent green building advocate, has joined the Green Building Initiative (GBI) as president. “It’s a new beginning,” Yudelson told LEEDuser. “We pushed the reset button.”

GBI’s relationship with its former—and controversial—president, timber lobbyist Ward Hubbell, along with lobbying and public relations firm Hubbell Communications, “has been severed,” Yudelson confirmed, and the group has moved from the Hubbell building to a new location in southwest Portland, Oregon.

The LEED family of rating systems uses specific terms to describe various aspects of its program. Whether you are a designer, contractor, consultant, manufacturer, educator, or owner, it is important to be clear and consistent about these terms. Becoming familiar with these terms is also a great way to gain a basic understanding of LEED.

Six items on my policy wish-list for 2014 and beyond.

1) Rigid insulation with no flame retardants and insignificant global warming potential

Can we replace foam insulation? What does energy modeling really tell us? Find out what you, our readers, have picked as this year’s top 10 stories!

Our resident number-crunchers have spent hours slaving over metrics to bring you … your own most-read BuildingGreen stories of the year. Ta-da!

We just have to say, you guys have great taste. If you don’t see your favorite article listed here, though, tell us what it is—and why—in the comments.

Are we going to find the same NIMBY opposition to larger solar systems that we’re experiencing today with wind farms? 

Beacon Power pushing the envelope and creating a more resilient utility grid with large-scale flywheel power storage

A recent memo hints that the Department of Defense will accept Green Globes certification for buildings—but that was already the case.

It started with a press release from the Green Building Initiative, developer of the online Green Globes tool—“Department of Defense Recognizes Green Globes for Assessing Building Sustainability”—and it spread from there to many of our favorite blogs and green building news sites.

I should have known I was in for something unexpected when I walked into this year’s Greenbuild session on “biophilia”—humans’ love of living things—in a dark, windowless auditorium.

The latest—and largest to date—release of data from LEED-certified buildings shows that LEED buildings are strong energy performers. However, lack of granularity in the data release by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) doesn’t reveal much more than that, possibly due to sidestepping of LEED 2009’s required energy reporting.

Solar Grid Storage is at the forefront of efforts to use renewable energy to create a more resilient utility grid 

Dear USGBC,

For the last year, as the transparency and disclosure movement has gained steam in the building products industry, we’ve heard many compelling arguments for why manufacturers should be transparent about what’s in their products. From USGBC representatives and members, we’ve heard that: