Archive for Gordon

Sidwell Friends School is the greenest school on the planet. Its middle school is the only Platinum LEED institution of its kind to have been brought to fruition. Most of the materials used in construction were either recycled or salvaged, like cedar wood re-used from wine casts. And 78 percent of the materials were manufactured regionally (within 500 miles) to minimize energy from transportation. All plants for landscaping purposes were native. The rooftop houses an array of photovoltaic panels. Low-VOC paints, glues, and adhesives were used in classrooms to improve air quality.

Passive solar design reduces the air conditioning load through natural ventilating and shading. A green roof reduces the "urban heat island effect" and removes pollutants from rainwater. And about 95 percent of the school’s water is recycled through perhaps the most impressive feature of the middle school: its artificial wetlands. Continued

Beyond Pesticides was formed in 1981 (formerly the National Coalition Against the Misuse of Pesticides) as a nonprofit membership organization to help keep local, state, and national pesticide policy responsive to public health and environmental concerns. With the overarching goal of leading the transition to a world free of toxic pesticides, the organization seeks to effect change through local action, assisting individuals and community-based organizations to stimulate discussion on the hazards of toxic pesticides, while providing information on safer alternatives. Their website features daily news, various fact sheets, and information on a number of issues, as well as membership.

Working Wonders, located in Mt. Washington, MD, is an online haven for eco-friendly furniture and accessories of all kinds for home or office. From flooring to lighting to cabinetry to beds, it’s a green marketplace for all kinds of shoppers. With one of their primary concerns being indoor air quality, Working Wonders offers organic textiles, sustainable woods, recycled metals and glass, and renewable fuels. Perhaps most useful are the easy-to-follow product descriptions, all of which include between one and eight icons, identifying the ways in which that product has qaulified as green, the categories being: reduces waste, conserves natural resources, improves air quality, saves energy and/or water, better production practices, better shipping practices, better community relations, and manufacturing location.

The Bodhi Clinic , located in Ellicott City, MD, helps enable clients to remove those factors that bring about disease in their lives, ideally using natural methods. Run by Dr. Stephany Porter, a licensed Naturopathic Doctor, the clinic views medicine as a continuum, where optimal health is ideally reached by the least invasive modalities, like lifestyle, diet, and exercise, but sometimes must be attained by pharmaceutical or surgery methods. Naturopathic Medicine operates with the notion that optimal health results from the harmonious functioning of our internal (physical, emotional, spiritual, genetic) and external (social, environmental) world. Based on that model, each person’s disease state requires unique medicines specific to their specific needs.

Update, 6.19.18: new address is 4801 Dorsey Hall Drive, Suite 206, The Crossroads Building, Ellicott City, MD 21042

Ecoprint , first founded in 1977, is a printing company that uses environmentally responsible printing processes that are 100% carbon neutral, with a net of zero greenhouse gas emissions. Offering a number of services, including printing, conceptualization and design, data work, storage, and mailing, Ecoprint has spent years doing research with ink manufacturers and paper mills to come up with new products and processes to create a higher standard of environmental stewardship in the industry, like using Eco-ink^® and recycled papers free of hazardous chemicals.

The Neighborhood Design Center works throughout the Baltimore and Prince George’s County area helping residents, small non-profit organizations, and community development corporations do what they typically otherwise couldn’t: improve their communties. These communities many times are seeking to improve blocks and homes, renovate parks and school grounds, reclaim abandoned structures for new community uses, improve neighborhood commercial districts, etc., but simply lack the means. The Neighborhood Design Center helps by offering multiple free services: conceptual building and site plans, preliminary feasability studies and cost estimates, neighborhood master plans, and community development guidance. As the center itself is a non-profit, it does all this by mobilizing volunteer architects, planners, landscape architects, engineers, and other design professionals who donate their professional services to help neighborhoods in their initial revitalization efforts. Through their work the center hopes to strengthen community participation in neighborhood improvement efforts, educate the public about the value of good design, and serve as a catalyst for increased investment in neighborhood development.

Eco-Green Living , located on NW Church Street in Washington, D.C., is an ideal stop for anyone looking to be a bit more green-minded in their home or personal purchases, offering a wide range of products from bamboo flooring to organic bedding to fair trade chocolate. They feature products from multiple lines of green vendors, like natural light systems from Solatube , tankless and solar water heaters from Rheem , and body products from Perfect Organics .