Friday, March 25, 2011

Discount deadline for ESBD Course ENDS TODAY

You can save dollars by registering TODAY for the Endorsed Sustainable Building Designer courses in either Ipswich or Cairns. There are still plenty of subsidised places available but you need to complete your registration NOW.

The courses will cover Environmentally Sustainable Design Compliance and Solutions on day 1; Building Rating, Materials, Issues and Solutions (day 2); Green Building and Materials Procurement (day 3); Life Cycle Assessment in Practice (day 4).

Our ESBD trainers are undergoing intensive training under the tutalage of David Baggs from EcoSpecifier who is a world renowned expert on building sustainability and co-author of the materials.

The new BEDI web site with an exciting innovation - Building Consumer Advice Bureau - will be launched on 16 April 2011 and will deliver unprecedented promotion to Endorsed Sustainable Building Designers.

This is your opportunity to be part of that promotion. If you are not near Ipswich and Cairns and would like to suggest a course in your area, please contact us at russell@bedi.com.au or just add a comment to this post.

If you need a registration form or more information please contact us at russell@bedi.com.au or phone 07 38899119.

Thursday, March 3, 2011

New free-to-air ecospecifier.com.au website launched

New free-to-air ecospecifier.com.au website launched at Green Cities

ecospecifier has launched a brand new website that is totally FREE TO AIR to display its new GreenTag™ GreenRate GBCA recognised product certification and rebranded Verified Product listings (formerly ‘Enhanced’ listings). The new site is suitable for green building professionals, DIY renovators and homeowners alike, in fact anyone looking to simplify their green building   product research using a one stop source.

Australia’s premier source of online data and knowledge about eco and health preferred building materials, products, technologies and design strategies was re-launched at the Green Building Council’s Green Cities Conference yesterday in Melbourne and is now:

·         much easier to navigate; has
·         more graphics driven with fewer words;
·         provides image galleries of products;
·         has new and more powerful search functions with Green Star® tool and credit icons with rollover text to explain the credits and points; and
·         new product summaries and news and events features; with
·         manufacturer profiles; and a
·         new tab driven product listing layouts; as well as
·         a large amount of new knowledgebase information; and a whole new section of easy to read articles (such as the newly recognised health impacts of Propylene Glycol, a common constituent of water based paints and the health impacts and trade-offs of mercury in fluorescent lighting).

The site also includes new ecospecifier Verified Product Program product listings that ensure the product has been third party verified as an eco-preferred, healthy product and been subjected to the same highly detailed and robust health and eco-toxicity screen as GreenTag™ certified products with technical advice as to products’ relevance to green building rating tools such as Green Star®, NABERS and BASIX..

Products certified under the new world first  ecospecifier global Green Tag™ LCARate Certification system, and underpinned by rigorous, audited Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) processes such as Polyflor, Laminex, Dunlop Underlays and Tontine Insulation are also included on the site together with the GreenRate certifications. GreenRate Certification provides GBCA recognised points in Materials Calculators, Volatile organic compounds and formaldehyde credits for items like, flooring, paint, kitchens, joinery, furniture, mattresses, walls, partitions, ceilings, adhesives and sealants, building boards and composite wood like laminated beams and plywood.

ecospecifier  has been Australia’s leading source of verified green product information since 2003 and now has over 6000 eco-preferred products on the site. It has been able to realize its founders’ (David Baggs and Mary-Lou Kelly’s) original intention of delivering robust, third party verified green building product information, ‘greenwash’ and cost free into the public domain. According to CEO Baggs, “The GreenTag™ program is only 9 months old and already has nearly 40 products certified and a further 200 products under certification, its success has given us the confidence to take the site free to air so that everyone can access information at whatever level of detail they need, from product summaries and GreenTag™ Rating Scorecards, to Green Star® Certification and highly detailed  ISO 14005 compliant Environmental Product Declarations’.

Asked about the accreditation of ecospecifier’s new GreenTag™ Ecolabel program he replied’ GreenTag™ is Australia’s most third party certified product certification system with audits undertaken not only of our Quality System but also of our assessments and compliance to no less than 5 International and Australian Standards”.

ecospecifier global
Address:        PO Box 311 Cannon Hill, QLD 4170
tel.                   1300 669 997
fax.                  1300 304 690
web:                http://www.ecospecifier.com.au/