By Brian Libby
Leave it to a city both satirized and celebrated for its earnest quirkiness to buck the trend.
While governments from Washington to Athens hack their budgets, and Wall Street’s fervor for solar and other alternative power companies wanes amid bankruptcies and falling stocks, last week Portland’s city council affirmed its commitment to the $62 million Oregon Sustainability Center, a public-private partnership to construct what would be the world’s greenest office building.
If constructed next year as planned, the Center would be the nation’s first mixed-use office building to meet Living Building Challenge strictures, which are far more rigid than even the Platinum-level LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) certification offered by the U.S. Green Building Council. The building, situated downtown near Portland State University (one of its development partners along with the City of Portland and local private developer Gerding-Edlen), is designed to achieve net-zero levels of electricity and water usage. READ MORE >>