LEAD STORY: RCA's Greenpeace Eco-Headquarters Virtual Tour Launched

FEATURE STORY: The Farm Bill--Its Not Just About Soybeans

NEWS BRIEFS
a) Mercedes-Benz Dumps Wood for Flax
b) Aussies Look to Wood for Electricity
c) A Green Building for the Book Worm
d) Motivating Manufacturers
e) From Wastes to Treasures
f) Timber Frames Reincarnated
g) Recycled Packaging Saves Dollars and Trees

CAMPAIGNS & EVENTS
McDonough lecture
green design
tree free campus
Staples
markets teach-in

RESOURCES & ANNOUNCEMENTS
certified wood
green hotels
paper reduction

LEAD STORY
RCA's Greenpeace Eco-Headquarters Virtual Tour Launched

With the click of a mouse, people from the frozen grounds of Fairbanks, Alaska to the warm isle of Tahiti can now interact with a "green" building thanks to Resource Conservation Alliance (RCA). RCA has launched a QuickTime VR of Greenpeace USA's stylish new Washington, DC "eco-headquarters" on its website

The prototype proves that an environmentally sensitive building can excel in aesthetics (Interiors and Sources magazine calls it gorgeous) and function. The virtual tour shows how practical and stunning a "green" building can be, dispelling the myth that to be "green," one must sacrifice beauty, practicality and quality of life.

The Chinatown headquarters is a model of "green," saving resources by adapting an existing 1898 building to make it functional again. Instead of wood, the reception desk counter is made from recycled yogurt container manufacturing scraps and the conference room doors are made from agricultural waste. Wood from old barns was salvaged for the lobby's flooring. The QuickTime VR, produced by Public Webworks, allows users to move through the space, view close ups and hear a description about the products.

The tour is available on our website at . This site provides a link to the tour and to the Quicktime download. Those who already have Quicktime, can go directly to the tour at . (Click and drag to scroll through the space. Click on the hotspots to see closeups, hear audio on the products and to move into another room.)

FEATURE STORY
The Farm Bill--Its Not Just About Soybeans

It may be called the "Farm Bill," but this piece of legislation could have several significant impacts on wood consumption. After having passed both the House and now the Senate, the Farm Bill has moved to a conference committee which will work out the inconsistencies between the two different versions.

The Farm Bill supports the further expansion of the forests biomass industry (wood for fuel), including subsidies (under section 921 of the Senate Bill 1731). According to American Lands, the bill would provide $50 million in subsidies to a forest biomass industry that encourages unsustainable logging to feed biomass plants on Bureau of Land Management and National Forest lands. The House version of the bill allows funds to be granted toward large energy producers, not just small plants, and it lacks any environmental monitoring.

According to American Lands, using forest biomass as fuel is not sustainable and "will almost inevitably lead to new pressure to log trees that are better left in place." Indeed, the bill drives to expand biomass markets -- "the U.S. should...develop and expand markets for traditionally underused wood and other biomass as an outlet for value-added excessive forest fuels."

In addition to the biomass provision, the biobased product section of the Farm Bill will also impact wood consumption. Section 744 of the Senate version of the Farm Bill amends Section 404 of the Agricultural Research, Extension, and Education Reform Act of 1998 by extending the program to 2006. This section calls on the Secretary of Agriculture to support the development of biobased products.

While this initiative could have a positive impact on wood consumption by helping to develop new markets in agriculture-based products, it unfortunately includes the term "forestry materials" in the definition of biobased products. In the United States, forest-based products are a mature market, currently enjoying a tremendous share of the market compared to many alternative agriculture-based products. Their inclusion in this definition is not only unnecessary, it is entirely detrimental to the development of the numerous agriculture-based products that deserve an expanded market share.

a) Mercedes-Benz Dumps Wood for Flax
Natural fibers are showing up in unexpected places, making strides in replacing glass fibers in automobiles due to their benefits, according to the AgFiber Technology Newsletter, February 12, 2002, Volume 4, Number 3 Issue 60 article, "Ford Motor Company Sees Enhanced Characteristics Utilizing Natural Fibers in Automotive Composites." Natural fibers have lighter weights (for better fuel efficiency), are less abrasive to tooling, decrease processing cycle times, are less harmful to workers and require less energy to produce, among other benefits. While wood is being consumed for this application, a number of agricultural fibers are being used as replacements as well, including hemp, kenaf, sisal, jute and coconut coir. In fact, wood was replaced by flax and sisal for Mercedes-Benz E-Class door panels, according to the newsletters article, "Renewable Materials for Moldable Automotive Applications."

b) Aussies Look to Wood for Electricity
The use of wood for power generation continues to attract interest from researchers and others and presents the specter of growing wood consumption for this market sector as societies respond to oil price fluctuations. Australia's Renewable Energy Commercialization Program is developing technology to use wood for regional electricity generation, reported EarthVision Environmental News on January 22, 2002 in "Scientists Derive 'Green' Electricity from Wood." A much better alternative is energy efficiency and solar and wind generated electricity. For more information on preferable alternatives, see Rocky Mountain Institute's energy program .

c) A Green Building for the Book Worm
Staid, wood intensive libraries are giving way to a new generation of open, airy and inviting community meeting places. A new library in Poland, Ohio has incorporated numerous "green" features including wood saving measures and has prioritized long-term durability, according to "Achieving Excellence Through Recycled Building Materials," Environmental Design+Construction, January/February 2002. The building itself is a reuse, incorporating existing structures into the completed library. Recycled and virgin wood alternatives are used throughout. The windows and doors are made of 95 percent recycled aluminum and 15 percent recycled glass. The flooring uses hardwood salvaged and recycled from 200-year old New England barns.

d) Motivating Manufacturers
Always ahead of their North American counterparts, European countries anticipate that "extended producer responsibility" (EPR) initiatives will continue to be important environmental protection tools in the future, according to "EPR -- The Environmental Policy Instrument of the Future?" Resources Report: Newsletter for Sustainable Development, Issue IV/2001. EPR is an environmental policy instrument that calls for manufacturers and suppliers to take greater responsibility of their products when they reach the end of their useful lifetime. As a result, the policy drives manufacturers and suppliers to re-manufacture, reuse, recover and recycle products, in order to avoid waste disposal costs. Disposal considerations also become a factor in design of the products, providing an incentive for designs that make products easily reusable or recyclable.

e) From Wastes to Treasures
One of the effects of a "disposable" society is the careless waste of precious resources. Throughout the United States, millions of cubic yards of wood had been landfilled or incinerated, but thanks to rising landfill costs and outright bans of tree disposal in landfills in some states, the value of this wood is being recognized, according to "Carving Niche Markets for Damaged Urban Trees," In Business, January/February 2002. Municipal trees are increasingly seen as an asset when left standing. And trees, such as oak, walnut, maple, cedar, ash, locust, sycamore, catalpa and chestnut, that are destroyed by severe storms, insect damage or disease are increasingly being manufactured into useful products or artwork instead of being thrown in the trash.

f) Timber Frames Reincarnated
Timber frames from about-to-be-bulldozed warehouses and other structures are being saved whole for reuse in homes, according to "Building a Business on Reclaimed Timber" in In Business, January/February 2002. The additional benefit is that timber framed homes generally greatly outlast conventional stick frame homes and greater durability can lead to less wood consumption.

g) Recycled Packaging Saves Dollars and Trees
Consumers of paperboard packaging -- folding cartons used for medicines, fast food, software, cereal, etc., -- are increasingly moving to recycled fiber products, reports green@work magazine in its January/February 2002 special section article, "Leader of the Pack." More than half of supermarket products are made with recycled paperboard packaging and new market segments are converting to 100 percent recycled paperboard.

CAMPAIGNS & EVENTS

This year, Washington DC's Environmental Film Festival held annually in the Spring, will include a special lecture by William McDonough, guru of "green" architecture and the "Next Industrial Revolution." The lecture will take place on Thursday, March 7, 2002 at 7:00 pm at the National Building Museum. For more information, see and click on "opening event."

EnvironDesign6 hosted by Interiors and Sources and green@work magazine is scheduled for April 3-5, 2002 in Seattle, WA. For information contact 561.627.3393 or visit .

The campus-based Tree Free Paper Campaign Day of Action will be held on April 4th, 2002 to encourage university administrators to transition to ecologically sound papers and cancel Boise Cascade contracts. For a downloadable Tree Free Paper Campaign action packet and factsheets on Boise Cascade, go to RAN's web site at .

The next Staples Day of Action will be held on April 11th. Activists are calling on Staples to phase out all old growth fiber wood and paper products, all wood and paper products made from fiber from US public lands, all 100 percent virgin paper products. For more information on the campaign, see .

Campus Ecology has opened the registration for its Driving Sustainable Markets "Teach-In." This green purchasing course is being held entirely on the Internet and will be taught by Kevin Lyons, Director of Procurement at Rutgers University. Topics include recycled paper and sustainably harvested wood. For more information, see .

RESOURCES & ANNOUNCEMENTS

ForestWorld has launched a Certified Forest Products Marketplace geared toward matching up buyers and sellers of certified wood products. The business tool enables buyers to solicit detailed requests for quotations from every FSC-certified forest products company in the world. The marketplace also incorporates certified recycled and reclaimed forest products. (ForestWorld is not a broker, but buyers and suppliers must pay a subscription fee to use the service.) For more information, see .

Waste Reduction in Hotels and Motels: A Guide for Hotel and Motel Managers is available at . The guide includes information on waste reduction including waste prevention, recycling and the purchase of recycled content materials.

Reach for Unbleached, a British Columbia based nonprofit, recommends Fineprint, a software program that can provide some paper saving measures. The program enables users to fit a one-and-a-bit page onto one page, print two, four or eight pages of a .pdf file on one page and prompts users for double sided printing. For more information, see or .

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