zerochampion

Forum fun

We're likening the creation of the new Building forum site as akin to gardening. Plant some seeds and wait patiently for shoots and flower the emerge. Something like that anyway. There's been a couple of responses to the debate we kicked off on green legislation last week. And there's a few new queries on the any green questions sections, one on the ethics of flying to a sustainability conferences and one on Code Level 3 and water specification, and as I write this a three answers. To tempt you to get involved there's an i-Pod touch for the first 50 posters on the site.

Fresh start

I have to admit to have lost some of the enthusiasm for blogging of late. is that natural after just over a year of firing out random thoughts and opinions? How many variations are there of whingeing at government inaction or industry indifference?  Perhaps Spring will inspire me to renew my efforts. And the continuing fine work by Mel, Martin and the guys at Carbon Limited certainly offer some inspiration to keep plugging away.

Comedy blogging part 2

Here's a post from Richard Herring's blog that he read at at the comedy gig I attended last week that got me giggling. It's about yogurt.

The sustainable quiz

Mel helped me out by flagging this up at the weekend. I wouldn't want to deprive you of earning a 20 quid Amazon token, so try the sustainability quiz on the Building website. Good luck.

Fresh links

The Observer's Ethical living page usually springs up some new sustainable websites. Yesterday's edition came up with three - a site promoting green IT called greenisp, Unpacked, a new store that encourages consumers to refill their own containers with products rather than having to package them up and a site promoting green living and working called Choose The Alternative.

Plug number two - housing online seminar

I'm in full puff mode this morning, this time marketing a new online seminar on the Building website that will take place next week on the Code for Sustainable Homes. There more information on it in an article on the site.

Plug number one

I failed to mention a piece I wrote in last week's Building on blogging. Not just a plug for mine own of course but an (ahem) serious attempt to direct a print audience to a world that many of them have little knowledge or experience of. Hopefully it may change some minds and inspire some new sites to appear. One unintended consequence of the piece is that I appear to have brought out the man/woman behind Bollocks2architecture out of retirement. The power of print eh?

New blogger in town

I'm glad to report that Nick Devlin, who runs his own sustainability consultancy, has now stepped into the blogoshpere (I hate that word). He's teamed up with one of the sectors best bloggers, Casey Cole, to become joint poster on Carbon Limited. And judging by his first post, on the Code for Sustainable Homes, Nick's got a lot of very interesting things to say.

Apologies to subscribers

I think subscribers to this blog received three emails yesterday, for which I apologise. I'd like to say it was due to technical difficulties, if that phrase could be defined as me getting hopelessly confused with how my emailing subscription service actually worked. Bear with me if this happens a couple more times.

How do you rate green buildings? An American look - but an international issue

The New York Law Journal recently published an insightful article entitled "What does 'Green' Mean?" Its dual authors, Peter S. Britell and Smita G. Korrapati, state their terms in the opening paragraph: "Green is good. Yet there has been little focus on what green means in commercial agreements - and what happens if a contracting party defaults in being green."