Articles About Green

Because Chicago is home to approximately 80 wind companies, including corporate headquarters and turbine factories, the city is seen as a hub for the wind industry.   With plenty of farmland suited to wind turbines, Illinois has a law mandating that the state gets at least 18 percent of its electricity from wind by 2025.  Unfortunately, […]

Celebrity architect Helmut Jahn has created a vision for redeveloping Chicago’s Navy Pier, which celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2016.  Writing in the Chicago Tribune about Jahn’s plan, architecture critic Blair Kamin says “Yes, it’s over the top and, in all likelihood, ridiculously expensive.  But it’s full of creative sparks — precisely what was missing […]

The white pages are heading into retirement, as regulators in New York, Pennsylvania and Florida have approved Verizon Communications Inc.’s wish to no longer distribute residential phone books. According to phone companies, the majority of people now look up numbers on the internet instead of consulting the bulky book.  “Anyone who doesn’t have access to […]

A total of $1.4 trillion worth of commercial real estate loans are coming due between now and 2014, with the majority on small- and medium-sized buildings that are either under water or very nearly there.  Writing for the Huffington Post, Daphne Wysham says that “crisis breeds opportunity. It turns out that buildings are responsible for […]

The way America has been built in the last half century has assured that a majority of the population is dependent on the car to get to work, to school, to shop or virtually any place.  This is the opinion of Andres Duany and Jeff Speck, who are city planners and co-authors of “The Smart […]

Google is expanding its horizons by partnering with Good Energies, a New York-based investment firm that specializes in renewable energy, to create a $5 billion, 350-mile-long transmission grid to support offshore wind farms along the Atlantic Seaboard. Each of the two firms has agreed to take 37.5 percent of the equity portion of the project […]

A new green initiative is joining the White House’s already famous organic vegetable garden.  President Barack Obama plans to install solar panels on top of the White House’s living quarters to heat water and provide power to some of the historic mansion. The panels are scheduled to be in place by the spring of 2011, […]

Although construction in the United States has been slow since the financial meltdown of 2008, there is one niche segment that is thriving – green construction.  According to McGraw-Hill Construction, green buildings now comprise one-third of all new construction, an increase of two percent over 2005, a surprise in an industry that is historically slow […]

It’s not your imagination.  Chicago’s weather is getting warmer and climate scientists, botanists and zoologists have collected evidence that show real-time changes in seasonal timing and weather patterns that are altering the region’s ecosystems.   Writing in the Chicago Tribune, reporter William Mullen says “This is what experts say we should expect in the future:  Shorter, […]

Chicago’s initial Green Office Challenge honored 34 property-management firms, companies and buildings in a contest to determine who has accomplished the most in terms of reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. Sponsored by Mayor Richard M. Daley, the city’s Department of Environment and the non-profit ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability USA, the competition is part […]