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Our New Event! Greener by Design: Strategies, Tools, and Markets for Product Innovation

This two-day, hands-on event focuses on the greening of mainstream products by combining first-rate speakers and panelists with a unique approach to innovation called Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT).

Participants will hear from leading companies large and small, as well as the top green product designers and participate in innovative techniques that combine the best elements of a traditional conference and an experiential workshop.

> Sign up at GreenerByDesign.com today!

Joel Makower

Welcome to GreenBiz 2.0!

We've been working long hours behind the scenes to make GreenBiz.com and our sister sites even more useful and information-packed. At last, we're ready to unveil it.

We have redesigned the look and feel of GreenBiz.com and all our sister sites to make it easier for you to navigate and explore. All the same great news and resources are still here, and here is a short overview of all the new additions and changes to the sites.

If you have any questions, comments or suggestions about the new design, send a note to Carlie Peterson at carlie@greenerworldmedia.com.

Thanks for reading!
Joel Makower
Joel Makower, Executive Editor

New Study Compares Green Building Rating Systems to AIA's Sustainability Goals

OAKLAND, Calif. -- The American Institute of Architects (AIA) has released a report looking at how the three major green building rating systems match up to its own criteria for what a rating system should include.

"Quantifying Sustainability" explains the AIA's 16-point criteria for rating systems that it laid out in late 2005 when it adopted a sustainability position statement.

In the report, the AIA sees how its criteria stacks up what is included in LEED-New Construction 2.2, Green Globes for New Construction and SBTool 07.

The three are the most widely used rating systems in the U.S., and the AIA intends for the study to be simply an analysis of how the systems support the AIA's goals without ranking or grading them.

None of the three is fully in line with the AIA's criteria. They all address most of the same points as the AIA, but not as strictly as the AIA. In most cases the systems do not require the same actions the AIA would like to see, but instead encourage those actions, in areas such as sustainable sites, water efficiency and indoor environmental quality.

Green Globes, for instance, does not require specific goals for significant reductions in energy use, which the AIA criteria call for. Instead, Green Globes encourages such action and awards points for doing so.

SBTool07 is designed to take into account national, regional and bioclimatic differences, unlike the other two systems, which do not address all three.

While LEED-NC meshes with the AIA criteria of requiring a minimal level of indoor air quality, is does not require life cycle assessment data to be used as the basis for design and construction decisions.

View the full report to see how each system stacks up, point-by-point.

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