Among the thousands of useless whiz-bangs and comfort enhancers, these gadgets raise the sustainability bar.

IN MY THREE DAY SOJOURN through the thundering carnival of CES, a few products and services cut through the clutter to offer real problem solving. Some save energy. Others help seniors stay in their homes longer. Still others prevent damage to homes or optimize entire apartment buildings so they can "talk" to utilities. Some simply encourage more cooking at home. All warrant a second look.

A featured speaker at the 2019 Sustainability Symposium: The Desert Will Bloom February 18 in Las Vegas, Bill Walton’s motivational message encourages us all to live life to the fullest while being sustainable.

At CES, the company is promoting Alexa-enabled faucets, vanity mirrors and water guzzling showers over performance and efficiency.

Perhaps I expect too much. But in the more than two decades I’ve been attending trade shows and writing about building products, Kohler has consistently been one of the good guys. They always seemed to be making forward strides to reduce water waste, educate the public about conservation, and tighten up their vast manufacturing facilities.

The latest hybrid electric model from Toyota "talks" to the Align Project house in real time, triggering off-the-wall routines.

As part of the Align House exhibit at CES in Las Vegas, this Toyota Avalon Hybrid bridges the "missing link" between home and mobility. The concept has been around, but Toyota is leading the curve in actual execution. The vehicle has a heads-up display screen called the Entune App Suite, with many built in bells and whistles.

The Align Project opened Tuesday at CES2019, beginning with an international media event.

Visitors so far have included Google subcontractors who oohed and aahed about the home's austere yet complete interior.

A growing string of natural disasters may lead to huge insurance increases for businesses and homeowners.

Climate change may turn into a gold mine for insurance companies, who may begin raising rates once they finish recalculating their catastrophe models. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, a growing number of global warming-induced natural disasters have insurers looking for ways to recover their costs, as well as predict how they will change in the future.

Amid pioneering demonstration homes, groundbreaking events, revolutionary market intelligence, and award-winning content, 2019 promises to be a sensational year for Green Builder Media.  Check out the exciting projects we have in the hopper!

Since our inception in 2005, Green Builder Media has helped set the standard for excellence in sustainability, quality, resiliency, and wellness in the built environment.  Everything that we do—from generating award-winning content, to developing cutting-edge demonstration homes, to hosting thought leadership events, to offering pioneering market intelligence, advances our goal of improving the performance of the built environment in North America.

From sightline rules about solar panels to preservation of antique windows, historic district watchdogs do measurable harm and negligible good.

Portland, Maine is a great city, for some.

Known for its food, working waterfront, and to a lesser degree, historic buildings, it’s a place many people would like to retire.  But hand in hand with these pleasant daguerrotype fantasies, are the challenges. Perhaps Portland has always been two cities: the affluent one and the other one--Halfway houses number well into the double digits. Shuffling heroin addicts roam the streets, and public alcoholism often ends in a collapse on the sidewalk. But on the East and West Ends of the peninsula, where many of the oldest homes are, cash-rich newcomers have clashed with entrenched residents. Teardowns are causing an uproar. People are afraid the city will be “Bostonized.”

In 2017, Green Builder Media and specialty modular builder Shelter Dynamics debuted the Flex House, a model for “Right-Sized” living in a small, flexible space that is connected, intelligent, resilient and sustainable.  After much anticipation, the Flex House is finally in production and available for purchase.   Order yours today!

Finely crafted by Shelter Dynamics, the Flex House embodies the concept of “Right Sized Living”.   At 768 square feet, the Flex House makes a big impression with its high ceilings, arched doorways, rounded corners, clerestory windows, and U-shaped flow.  The home has two bedrooms, full kitchen, dining nook, sizable living room, and full bathroom.

Heading to CES in a few weeks?  Join Green Builder Media and our sponsors for a personal tour of The Align Project, a stunning example of net-zero, small footprint, solar-powered, intelligent living—with the smartest, most intuitive technology available today.

If you’ve never been to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), allow me to paint a picture for you—imagine Disneyland for tech geeks filled with endless gadgets that do almost anything you can think of, drones filling the skies, robots roaming the hallways that would make even Rosie from the Jetsons jealous, connected electric vehicles that run on solar power, Artificial Intelligence powered products that make your home smarter than you are, wearables that track your every biorhythm, and TVs, oh those illustrious high-def TVs, everywhere (literally, everywhere!) in a wall-to-wall jam-packed, high-energy sea of human invention. 

Use commons sense and math to get a quick read on whether the site you've chosen will be quiet enough to satisfy your client or your family.

Some people love the sound of train horns and the rumbling sound of wheels on the tracks. Others quite literally hate the noise. Perceptions of "acceptable" noise levels are often arbitrary and subjective, especially in the "middle" range of 40-60 decibels or so. One person's pleasant white noise in the background is another person's source of endless unhappiness and complaints.

The combination of efficiency improvements and electrification could lead to an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions for light duty vehicles (per vehicle-mile) by 2050.

“The Stone Age came to an end not because we had a lack of stones, and the oil age will come to an end not because we have a lack of oil.”

The VISION House Seattle Cascades builder is psyched at the opportunity to design and optimize around SIPS.

SIPs (structural insulated panels) can span full length of the house’s 12:12 roof pitches, reducing internal supports. This allowed the team to use the attic space for livable space, including bedrooms.