Eco-Experts: Meet Our New Experts

Enlarge Image Image Gallery Stucco provides a long-lasting and durable finish, according to Eco-Expert David Johnston. The drawback is the amount of embodied energy it requires to produce. Photo by Philip Beaurline

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Introducing the eco-experts

Natural Home is thrilled to introduce a new, active Editorial Advisory Board, a collection of some of the best brains we’ve ever encountered. Natural Home—and its readers—are incredibly fortunate to have attracted the enthusiasm of these pioneers in the healthy building and living industries.

Beginning with this issue, a rotating panel of our board members will answer reader questions in this department. “Eco-Expert” Debra Lynn Dadd, who remains a valued board member, will continue to answer questions and will also begin contributing feature-length articles.

Edith Vanderbilt Cecile is involved in several green interior design and sustainable garden projects. As the director of Concurrent Technologies Corporation’s Washington, D.C., operations she has managed several international environmental projects. She is the founding executive director of the United States Environmental Training Institute (USETI), a nonprofit organization that promotes appropriate environmental technologies and management approaches by working with industry and government organizations in developing countries.

Called “the queen of green” by The New York Times, Debra Lynn Dadd is the author of Home, Safe Home as well as Nontoxic & Natural; The Nontoxic Home; Natural & Earthwise; The Nontoxic Home & Office; and Sustaining the Earth. Debra believes that “a natural home should be about living as nature, in nature, rather than solely using natural materials.” She explains, “We need to learn about our places first, and our homes need to arise from the unique individuality of living in our places. We’re still separate for the most part. This is the next step.”

Brian Dunbar, idec, NCIDQ, Associate AIA, is director of the Institute for the Built Environment and associate professor of construction management and technology at Colorado State University. Brian has participated in green building research with the American Institute of Architects, the U.S. National Park Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and numerous school districts. He is a member of the AIA’s Committee on the Environment and the National Trust for Historic Preservation. His approach to sustainable building is broad, including land developments, embodied energy, pollution prevention, reuse and recycled content of materials, site and landscape design, historic preservation and restoration, indoor air quality, ­handwork, local art, natural lighting, life-cycle costing, and aesthetics.

David Eisenberg is co-founder and director of the Development Center for Appropriate Technology in Tucson, Arizona, an organization supporting the development and use of sustainable solutions to human and ecological needs. A co-author of the best-selling book The Straw Bale House, he has also built rammed earth and adobe homes, led workshops and consulted on alternative building materials and building codes, and oversaw construction of the spaceframe and glazing systems for Biosphere 2 in Oracle, Arizona. He is leading a broad-based collaborative effort, Building Sustainability into the Codes, with the goal of creating a sustainable context for building regulation. David is a member of the U.S. Green Building Council Board of Directors, where he is co-chair of the Greening the Codes Committee, vice chair of a subcommittee developing standards for earthen building materials, and serves on the Tucson/Pima County, Arizona, Joint Building Code Advisory Committee.