The League of Green Embassies was created by the United States Department of State. It was established as an initiative to promote international cooperation for clean technologies and energy efficiency. There are three major objectives of the League of Green Embassies are, “To advance the Presidential (more…)

As the second largest producer of hydropower in the United States, the Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation has a key role to play in President Obama’s blueprint for a secure energy future. Reclamation’s staff of engineers, biologists, hydrologists and other professionals are working tirelessly to conserve water and improve energy efficiencies at our projects (more…)

Energy is a commercial property’s single largest operating expense. That’s a lot of power when you consider that, according to the most recent Annual Energy Review of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), 19 percent of all energy in the entire country was consumed by commercial buildings. (more…)

Steven Johnson, in his book Where Good Ideas Come From (read an excerpt here) explained that great ideas, the ones that transform the marketplace, are based on the “adjacent possible:”

The phrase captures both the limits and the (more…)

I have tried to make simple and clear many complex legal topics before, including class action law suits and IRS tax-free bonds, but never have I faced this great a challenge. 

Apparently, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) and the International Accounting (more…)

Let’s be honest. Many of us probably had trouble paying attention one or two times in middle school science class. While the occasional frog dissection and "potato-volt" experiments were cool, not all of us got up in the morning, scarfed down Cocoa Puffs and got geeked about test tubes and (more…)

On May 11, the city of Seattle launched a commercial benchmarking program for commercial buildings, joining Washington, D.C., New York City, San Francisco, Austin, and the states of California and Washington in requiring building owners to track and disclose their energy bills to prospective buyers (more…)

Quick. What uses more electricity? The American automobile industry or the Internet? Has to be cars and trucks, right?

Not even close. The Internet is a massive user of electricity. One reason for the tremendous need for electricity can be traced to the continuous need for (more…)

Most developers view electricity and other utility costs as a liability, a cost of doing business in real estate. This does not have to be the case. In fact, there has been no better time to use energy management and on-site electricity generation as opportunities not only to reduce operating costs, (more…)

Efforts have been underway for decades to conserve both energy and water, but never in concert. This is unfortunate because energy uses a lot of water and water uses a lot of energy.

Two leading conservation organizations have set out to bring the efforts together. The American Council (more…)