VANCOUVER, British Columbia — TELUS Garden, a mixed-use, partnership office building in Vancouver, has issued $225 million in green mortgage bonds. It’s the first time in North America that green mortgage bonds have been used to support real estate financing.
ATLANTA — Atlanta’s new Falcons Stadium is two years away from completion, but already it’s becoming known for its sustainable efforts.
HONOLULU, Hawaii — Part of a nationwide sustainability initiative, Kaiser Permanente Hawaii’s 150-kilowatt (kW) solar photovoltaic system at Mapunapuna Medical Office recently joined the electrical grid.
It’s the first of eight planned solar installations to be completed by the organization. When fully implemented, the operation is expected to cut Kaiser Permanente Hawaii’s energy usage by 10 percent, saving $2 million to $4 million over the 20-year power purchase agreement.
JLL, a fortune 500 company that specializes in investment management and specialized real estate services, has reinforced its commitment to global sustainability and corporate citizenship. It has emphasized its focus on having a sustainable business plan, and has laid out its practices in their 2014 Global Sustainability Report titled, “Our Cities, Our Future.”
PPG Industries’ named Nathan McKenna as national architectural manager for the southeast region, covering Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and the majority of Florida. PPG features brands such as Solarban solar control, Sungator low-e glass, Starphire ultra-clear glass and a variety of performance-tinted, reflective and subtly reflective glasses. McKenna joins PPG from Columbia Commercial Building Products, Dallas, where he served as glass division manager.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) in Washington announced that Bioconstruccion y Energia Alternativea (BEA) is the most recent winner of the USGBC’s LEED Earth campaign.
PHILADELPHIA — BestColleges.com, using data from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) based in Philadelphia, revealed the 50 “greenest” U.S. colleges and universities. Colorado State University (CSU) in Fort Collins, Colo., was ranked No. 1.
WASHINGTON —The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced on July 22 its international rankings of the Top 10 Countries for LEED.
The Top 10 list highlights countries outside of the U.S. that are making significant strides in sustainable building design, construction and transformation. The announcement comes at a time of increased international focus on climate change mitigation in the lead up to the United Nations’ COP21 climate negotiations this December.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Green buildings are healthy buildings, according to Dr. Joseph Allen and fellow researchers of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University in Cambridge. The group conducted the first comprehensive review of studies that focused on green buildings and summarized the health benefits for the people who work and live in them.
The review is published in Springer’s journal, Current Environmental Health Reports.
The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) announced that Jane Henley, former chief executive officer of the World Green Building Council (WorldGBC), has come on board as a senior advisor to provide strategic guidance on global market development efforts in Asian markets. Head of the WorldGBC for more than five years, Henley made significant strides in the ongoing international market transformation of the green building industry.
