Three administrative bodies have taken green cleaning practices to the next level.

The Green Building Council (USGBC), the House of Representatives, and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments have instituted programs aimed to strengthen green cleaning in the United States.

The USGBC’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification has spawned several offshoot green building certification programs in its eight years of existence. LEED’s creators are now looking to align and unify the credits across the various rating programs to make the system more user-friendly, adaptive and flexible.

According to the USGBC, the refinement of LEED’s technical framework will integrate core elements of all rating systems, reducing duplication and “credit drift” between systems, and give users greater accessibility to certification information.

“The rating systems that we have are not going away, but when someone first comes into the LEED system, they’ll see a single LEED program,” said Scot Horst, LEED Steering Committee chair. “In LEED online, builders will put in information on their project and they’ll be given one of the rating systems (to work within). This allows us to create new rating systems for different building types much more easily.”

The refinement of the LEED system has coincided with the House of Representatives forming the Green School Caucus. The group will lead the policy discussion on the topic in various forms, create legislative opportunities for the collective efforts of the caucus members and provide members of Congress with constituent outreach resources. The group was formed by representatives Darlene Hooley, D-Ore., Michael McCaul R-Tex. and Jim Matheson, D-Utah.

Caucus members and their staff will participate in educational programs to learn what is going on nationally and in their districts, including site visits to green schools and educational panels with teachers, architects and school officials across the country.

While those two organizations are advancing green cleaning nationally, the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments called for a new wave of “green building” across a regional level. The council recommends that local governments across Virginia and Maryland build structures according to environmentally friendly standards and they are pushing private developers to do the same.

The laws are not binding, but council officials hope the laws will change soon. The Washington area’s next wave of development will feature structures designed to reduce energy pollution and save energy and water.

Council officials said they hope local governments will require all new government buildings to obtain a LEED Silver Certification from the USGBC.

Twelve Washington D.C. area jurisdictions have developed green policies or are doing so, the council said. The District passed a law that requires private projects of more than 50,000 square feet to be built to green specifications by 2012.


City Builds On LEED Principles
The city of Greensburg, Kan., has passed a resolution to certify all city-owned buildings LEED (Leadersip in Energy and Environmental Design) Platinum, making it the first U.S. city to pass such a resolution.

Greensburg was devastated by a massive tornado on May 4, 2007 and has focused its recovery on rebuilding a model green community. The city council adopted a resolution that all city buildings greater than 4,000 square feet will be certified LEED Platinum and be required to reduce energy use by 42 percent over current building code requirements.

BNIM Architects of Kansas City, Mo., worked closely with the city to draft the resolution and to educate the community on LEED Platinum Certification.

As part of the town’s Green Initiative, 10 commercial and public buildings in Greensburg have already committed to being LEED certified.


NEWS MAKERS

NFIB Handles Healthcare
The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) laid out a foundation to address the issue of quality, affordable healthcare for small-business owners. NFIB unveiled its “Small Business Principles for Health Care Reform” and revealed details about research projects that will reconstruct the development of health care reform policies for small business.

NFIB has hired the Lewin Group, a national healthcare consulting organization to undertake the research necessary. The research is designed to help NFIB better understand the available policy options and the preferences of independent businesses concerning those options.


MERGERS & ACQUISITIONS
DadePaper, Miami, has acquired Auburn Paper of Loachapoka, Ala. Craig Huey, the president of Auburn Paper will remain with the company along with members of the staff as operations transition to DadePaper’s Gulf State facility, located in Loxley, Ala.

The recent acquisition by DadePaper gives the company seven distribution branches and 12 sales support branches located throughout the southeastern and mid-Atlantic United States, Puerto Rico and the Caribbean.

II Rep-Z Inc., known as Microban Systems Inc. and Unsmoke Systems, Coraopolis, Penn., and Dri-Eaz Products Inc., Burlington, Wash., have entered a definitive agreement to merge operations.

II Rep-Z’s Unsmoke and Mircoban Systems brands and the Dri-Eaz brand will be housed under a single entity called Legend Brands.

Dri-Eaz will continue to operate out of its Burlington, Wash., headquarters and satellite offices in Nashville, Tenn., and Newport Pagnell, U.K. II Rep-Z will continue to operate out of its current headquarters in Coraopolis, Penn.




POSTED ON: 1/1/2008