Blog

Most people claim to want success. But not everyone is willing to do the hard work and the smart work to get there. Often opportunities present themselves and because people are distracted, they miss them or give up on them before things fully develop.

The future of smart HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) systems is critical to the American economy with the cost of natural resources, especially fossil fuels, undoubtedly set to rise over the coming years. Regulations across the country have required smarter cooling and heating in new buildings, and hence new buildings will become more energy efficient.

Rockaway Courthouse has sat empty for decades but plans are now in the works to give it new life as a hospital – a much-needed facility in a community that faced the 2012 closure of a major health center, not to mention the blows of Hurricane Sandy. Mayor Michael Bloomberg and the New York City Economic Development Corporation recently announced that developer Harmony Group will resurrect the abandoned 24,000-square-foot historic building and use the structure to establish a multi-specialty ambulatory center.

  Foster and Partners just unveiled some eco-friendly updates to their futuristic proposal for Apple’s new campus in Cupertino, California. The spaceship-like building, which features a giant circular tree-planted courtyard, will now come with a network of winding pedestrian walkways and bike paths that extend throughout the campus.

  Here’s the most noteworthy finding among the spring 2013 crop of surveys and polls on Americans’ environmental attitudes: “Millennials Pretend to Care About the Environment,” a headline from DDB’s most recent Life Style Study that concluded, “When it comes to being environmentally friendly, Millennials are talking the talk, but not walking the walk.”

  Last September, our first day at IIDEX, the biggest commercial interiors tradeshow in Canada, was going well. Customers liked our new products and our message about biophilic design. But the booth staff couldn't stop talking about getting outside.

 Are you tired of simplistic eco slogans and soundbites yet? This may come as a bit of a surprise undefined but I’m really starting to hate Earth Day. One might think that the editor of environmental-leaning publication like Inhabitat would live for Earth Day, but the opposite is true for me. I’m starting to come to the conclusion that Earth Day is just a shallow marketing opportunity for companies to jump on the green bandwagon and try to make some extra cash using eco-caché.

Green products have struggled to break through to the mainstream. According to our ongoing polling of Americans on this topic, the 22 percent of the population that leans green and is willing to pay a price premium for green products doesn’t want to buy mainstream brands.

  The world’s most energy-efficient LED bulb has just been unveiled by by Philips. The TLED bulb, still in its prototype stage, is based on tube lighting technology and provides a warmer glow than conventional LEDs. Each bulb generates 200lm/W of high quality lightundefinedmore than twice as much as the company’s current LED bulbs, and according to Philips is up to twice as efficient as its predecessors.

  Bill Gates has become the latest investor to back an innovative new water-based battery technology, which promises to store power generated by intermittent renewable energy projects such as wind and solar farms.