California Green Building Blog

The links listed on this page are general resources.  You will find a list in the column to the right of more links pages divided by general categories.   We provide a few summary words to help you find what you want, too.

• www.betterplace.com: BetterPlace bills itself not as an electric car company, but as a transportation infrastructure company – combining electric cars with battery exchange stations and other infrastructure that creates a new paradigm for travel.  Similarly revolutionary to game-changers such as Solar City, Better Place doesn’t just put a green face on an old technology, it changes the way the world functions.
• www.brightsourceenergy.com: BrightSource Energy, Inc. designs and builds large scale solar plants that deliver low-cost solar energy in the form of steam and/or electricity, at prices competitive with fossil fuels, to industrial and utility customers worldwide.
• www.buildinggreen.com/: Building Green, LLC is an independent company committed to providing accurate, unbiased, and timely information designed to help building-industry professionals and policy makers improve the environmental performance, and reduce the adverse impacts, of buildings.
• www.calfinder.com/: Calfinder CalFinder, a free service connecting homeowners to prescreened home improvement professionals. They have a separate area for solar energy, and even have a solar energy blog (Click Here).
• www.ecologue.com/: A website from Scripps Network (think HGTV and DIY Network) – do it yourself/consumer focused.
• http://ecoscorecard.com/: ecoScorecard™ is a Web-based tool that supports a manufacturer’s web site by cataloging its green products and providing architects and designers with the ability to evaluate each product based on its environmental characteristics. ecoScorecardSM does the calculations necessary for six environmental rating systems; (LEED, GGHC, Labs 21, CHPS, NAHB, Re:Green and third-party certifications) and produces the product documentation in a saved project folder or as a PDF necessary for inclusion in the submission process.
• http://www.globalgreen.org/: Founded in 1993 by activist and philanthropist Diane Meyer Simon, Global Green is the American Arm of Green Cross International (GCI), which was created by President Mikhail S. Gorbachev to foster a global value shift toward a sustainable and secure future by reconnecting humanity with the environment.
• www.igreenbuild.com/: iGreenBuild is a great online resource for eco-friendly news, articles, reports, videos, products and more. iGreenBuild.com has a powerful search engine, thousands of articles, a Buyers Guide with listings of ecologically friendly product and service providers and expert editorial provided by the site’s popular Green Syndicated Columnists.  They also have a blog: (Click Here).
• www.jetsongreen.com/: Jetson Green is a fantastic daily updated web magazine focused on green building, sustainable architecture, good design, clean technology in the built environment, and eco-friendly development.
• www.recurrentenergy.com:Recurrent Energy is an independent power producer and a leading developer of distributed solar projects for utilities, government, and commercial customers.  They develop, build, and operate distributed solar power systems — typically 2-20 MW each — in North America and Europe.
• www.renewableenergyworld.com: Renewable energy industry news.
• www.renewfund.com: Renewable Funding, LLC offers financial services to municipalities that want to offer solar installations to residential homeowners.  The CityFIRST product uses bonds to finance solar arrays on residential homes. Then, homeowners pay off the debt obligation over a 20 year debt obligation that attaches as a separate line item on their property tax bill.
• http://sf.solarmap.org/: An interactive map from CH2MHill and Google that allows visitors to forecast how much solar power their roofs will generate.
• www.sustainableindustries.com: This is a fantastic magazine and resource for all things sustainable including building, vendors, policy, and trends.