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April 22, 2008
Forest City in the News
Even developers get in on the Earth Day action:
LA Daily News, L.A.'s green-building plan deserves praise
From an Earth Day op-ed by Kevin Ratner, President of Forest City Residential West:
The terms "sustainability" and "green" have become ubiquitous marketing terms with increasingly powerful brand presence, not only in Los Angeles and California but throughout the world. Unfortunately, these terms are being misused to promote many products and projects which may not be in fact sustainable over time. As consumers, the public has little information and background to determine if a product truly lives up to these environmental claims.
So, we need to be sure now that what gets measured and promised actually gets done. [Los Angeles] must commit the staff and resources necessary to achieve tangible and measurable results.
NoLandGrab: A great example of how the word "sustainability" has been "misused" is Forest City's sponsorship of "sustainable sculptures," where recyclable water bottles were reused to create sculptures. Wouldn't it have been more "sustainable" to just recycle the damn bottles and use materials that would normally have ended up in a landfill somewhere?
Baltimore Examiner, Businesses do their part for Earth Day
Younger employees are also expecting to work in green office environments, said Joe Wilke, senior construction manager for Forest City, which developed the 278,000-square-foot John G. Rangos Sr. Building in the Science + Technology Park at Johns Hopkins in East Baltimore.
The building, which opened April 11, was built with heat-recovery flywheels to filter warm and cool air from the building, a white roofing system and high-efficiency lighting. The developer also paid to have recycling picked up from the building.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Shopping bag choices moving beyond just paper or plastic
Last weekend, the Mall at Robinson was one of 15 shopping centers owned by Cleveland-based Forest City Enterprises to give out reusable canvas tote bags to customers who brought plastic bottles to recycle.
NoLandGrab: It's really nice that Forest City is jumping on the eco-bandwagon — every bit helps. Meanwhile, in the footprint of the Atlantic Yards megaproject in Brooklyn, the Ratners are tearing down perfectly good buildings that have "SUSTAIN ME!" writen all over them. It's hard to take the eco-Ratners seriously — maybe they can buy a bundle of carbon offsets to assuage their guilt.
Posted by lumi at April 22, 2008 4:15 AM