Green Building at National Mall, Washington, DC

Yesterday I worked at an NAHB booth in Washington DC at EPA's National Sustainable Design Expo on the National Mall. There was also an adjacent Earth Day on the National Mall event with a concert and speakers and LOTS of people. There were many environmental science-minded enthusiasts at the Expo and lots of green minded people in general. We were surrounded by high level college presentations. Some of the college competitor project titles: Fuel Production from Coffee Wastes”; “A Sustainable Irrigation Ram Pump for Community Gardening in South Africa”; and A Process for Biological Nitrogen Removal from Dairy Wastewater in Constructed Wetlands”.

I was there along with several NAHB staff members and some local homebuilders and remodelers. We had a number of interested people coming up to inquire about green building and we explained it all. They were impressed that the home building industry has taken the intiative to build green and had a program to provide independent verification of the green certification. An interesting, but long day.