Distinctly Green: Cardboard building kits fun for kids, safe for environment

Martina McConnon was looking for toys that were creative and that could be recycled. She found them in her native Germany and, in 2008, she founded Creative Toy Shop and began selling them in the U.S. The toys are cardboard building kits from which children can build anything from a dinosaur to a spaceship. Creative Toy Shop also sells eco-friendly paint for decorating the cardboard structures.

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S.F., L.A. Top Green Commercial Building Lists

SAN FRANCISCO — In a listing of top U.S. cities for green commercial development and commercial energy saving initiatives, San Francisco ranked highest as having the best green office market conditions, according to the first-ever Green Building Opportunity Index.
 
In a second study of the efficiency of some of the nation’s greenest commercial buildings, produced by the EPA, San Francisco ranked third, dropping one spot from last year’s report.

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New Green Building Code Introduced

WASHINGTON – The nation’s leading organizations in building-code development and energy and lighting engineering announced the launch of the first nationwide standard set of green building codes, the International Green Construction Code Public Version 1.0.
 
The green building code system, which conforms to existing International Code Council codes, was designed to give professionals in the construction industry a standard method of developing high-performance green commercial buildings.
 
IGCC Public Version 1.

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