Room for Improvement: Green Certification

Interesting and highly informative article from the Wall Street Journal regarding Green Buildings. It appears that the certification process that allows certain buildings to be dubbed "green" gives equal weight to features with wildly divergent prices and ecological outcomes. (Scroll to the bottom of the article for a quote from GR's own Progressive Architecture)

Under the current system, buildings get points for "green" features on the list, such as water management or use of natural sunlight. Builders get one point for installing a $350 bike rack or an electric-vehicle recharging station that few might use. They score the same one point, however, for promising to obtain 5% of the building's energy from renewable sources such as wind or solar power. To win a green seal from the council, a building needs to earn 26 from a total of 69 possible points.

Talking Trash Cans are encouraging Berliners not to litter. Oh, and they're solar powered.