LEED

Hiring a lawyer may cost a bundle, but at least it's free to check out the legal code and determine exactly what the law is. Except when it's not: Welcome to the odd and expensive legal realm of codes and standards.

Going green has long been considered a luxury, something groups and individuals only do when they can afford it. And in our current economic climate, it would seem that almost no one can. But being environmentally friendly and fiscally responsible are not mutually exclusive imperatives, as the following examples show.

The Empire State Building is perhaps best remembered as the site of King Kong's last stand, but in real life, the monkey on the building's back wasn't a giant gorilla -- it was a giant electricity bill. But that was before one of the most remarkable green renovations ever undertaken.

Steven Glenn of Santa Monica lives in "the greenest house on the planet," BusinessWeek says. Which sounds exciting -- except Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute also lives in "what may be the greenest house on the planet," as this video put it. Lovins has no furnace and pays nothing...

Intel Capital has made a new set of investments through its $200 million Invest in America Technology Fund. Four software and chip-design businesses that have collectively received more than $30 million from the patriotic fund: Adaptive Computing, Ciranova, Joyent and Nexant.

If the three little pigs were building their houses today, the smart one would recycle the used twigs and straw from his brothers' huffed-and-puffed-apart abodes to reuse in a sustainable, reclaimed brick structure. It's the basic idea behind building "green" with salvaged materials -- and it's no...

A few months ago, I wrote a couple of pieces about prefab homes. The companies that I explored, dome house and Kithouse, offered relatively cheap ($30,000) homes that could be constructed almost anywhere, were easy to build, and could be connected to make larger, more luxurious spaces. They showed...