Being Green in the OC is as Simple as ABC

A rendering of the ABC Green Home (courtesy: ABC Green Home Project)

Last week, we announced plans to build an environmentally friendly home near the Orange County Great Park in Orange County, California.  Dubbed the ABC Green Home because of goals to make it affordable, buildable and certified by several of the green-building rating agencies, the house will demonstrate that a solar-powered, environmental home can be built using available materials, technology and appliances at a cost that's competitive with conventional housing.

The ABC Green Home will be the first of two experimental homes that SCE will build in Orange County, with support from the homes' designer, KTGY Group architects and Newport Beach-based Green Home Builder magazine.

The goal would be for the completed home to be displayed for a year so the public and the homebuilding industry can learn from the effort.  The home will then be moved to a new site and given away, most likely to a low-income family or a veteran.  

Read more about the ABC Green Home project here. 

You Can Take That To The (ZNE) Bank

The new TD Bank store in Florida, also known as the nation's first net-zero bank, features 400 solar panels that will produce 100 percent of the store's annual energy needs (credit: TD Bank)

TD Bank, which calls itself "America's Most Convenient Bank" can now say it has America's first zero net energy bank location, too. Located in Ft. Lauderdale, Fl., the bank achieves zero net energy through its 400 solar panels - which soak up the Florida sunshine while providing 100 percent of the bank's electricity needs. Pretty cool.

Learn more about America's first zero net energy bank here.

Top 10 Green Projects of 2011

The six-acre green roof of the Vancouver Convention Center, one of the Top Ten Green projects of 2011. (Credit: MetropolisMag.com)

The American Institute of Architects (AIA) and its Committee on the Environment (COTE) recently announced its list of the Top 10 Green Projects of 2011. Check out this MetropolisMag.com article about the super cool winning projects - among them, two schools, a meeting house for a Unitarian congregation and a sewage treatment plant.

Learn more about the winning projects here.