Over at ThomasNet Green & Clean this week, I wrote about the Living Building Challenge — an emerging standard that goes beyond LEED, awarding “Living” certification to buildings demonstrating that they have met 20 ultra-green “Imperatives.” See “Living Buildings: Like LEED on Whole-Grain Natural Steroids.”

In the article, I highlight two Living Buildings now under development in the Northwest U.S. — one of them, the Oregon Sustainability Center, is shown here.

Here’s one tidbit about the Living Building standards — the Imperatives set very strict standards about how far building materials and even services can be transported to a project site. The standards specify that consultants can’t come from farther away than 2,500 kilometers!

AB — 13 June 2011