Once your company has gathered up all the low-hanging fruit, what comes next?

Manufacturers use this rigorous design certification to create products that will be sustainable for generations to come.

Unlike individual products that have well-defined shelf lives, buildings stand for decades and endure climatic extremes, making it difficult to execute life cycle assessments. The arsenal of tools to perform LCAs is expanding to meet the growing interest in a concept that allows architects to take a long-term approach to sustainability.

With the soaring cost of fuel and transportation's dramatic impact on the environment, companies have no choice but to look at logistics as a place to go green. Some successful initiatives rely on small common sense programs that deliver incremental results, such as reduced idling or more direct truck routes.

Small moves toward daily sustainability are a part of a growing trend toward sustainable facilities management that goes beyond high-profile green initiatives, such as installing a solar power system or achieving LEED certification. This trend instead focuses on the daily minutiae of how a building is operated.

In this Q & A, Steve Faulstick of the Doubletree Hotel in Portland, Ore., discusses the hotel's efforts to take the sustainable high road without sacrificing guest comfort or the bottom line.

While they may seem like an odd couple, prefabricated housing -- in which most of a home's structure is pre-built in a factory then assembled on-site -- is an oddly natural partner for the green movement.

Stonyfield, Unilever and Aveda have known for years what other manufacturers are just discovering: that lighter-weight and recycled material can be transformed into beautiful packaging that is good for the environment.