We've been working overtime here at GreenRenter to launch a couple major changes to the site.

First, introducing the new GreenRenter Score! When we launched GreenRenter almost a year ago we shied away from rating buildings according to their shade of green. We reasoned that there were plenty of other people out there doing that, namely the US Green Building Council and their LEED rating system.

But, much of the early feedback we received from bloggers like Paul Smith at GreenSmith Consulting and sites like KillerStartups (thanks everyone!) suggested that renters needed an easy way to compare the properties they're interested in. While we still think trying to compare two buldings is an apples and oranges problem, we think we've found a simple and relatively painless scoring system that has benefits for everyone.

Every residential building on GreenRenter (commercial building scores are coming soon!) now has a 1 to 5 score, the higher the score the greener the building. The score is based on the building's green features, with weight given to innovativeness and breadth. You can also filter by score, using the filters on the right side of the list pages.

We go into more detail about the GreenRenter Score in our FAQ, and feel free to contact us with any questions or comments!

Portland Spaces features an article about a proposed smart tower

Late last year, Portland Parks & Recreation released a “request for proposals” – or RFP – for the old Portland Visitors Information Center, aka McCall’s Restaurant. Who would have expected that one of the applicants would imagine the tallest, most radical addition to the city’s skyline in history: a 650-foot spire festooned with more than 250 wind turbines.

This innovative project, while not without some controversy, represents the kind of approach we need to take in order to begin solving the pending energy crisis.

Mashable released their annual list of new Green Living Sites this week. GreenRenter made the list under Search Engines, Directories and Guides. Other topics include carbon calculators, charitable giving, dating, and local information. I met the founder of Rate it Green at the West Coast Green conference last week. I was happy to see this great resource on the list. Rate it Green has some spunk and a lot of detail. Keep your eyes on them! 

View the complete list

GlobeSt.com, a real estate investment website, contacted us last week for an interview. It was a great chance to discuss how the company got started and where we are heading.

GreenRenter wants to make it easier for owners of green buildings to find potential tenants. Launched earlier this year, the site lists commercial and residential properties in Portland, OR, the hometown of the site's three founders--Pam Neild, Lev Tsypin and Marti Frank. "We're working out the kinks, refining the site and improving functionality. Once we've got our concept down, we'll expand to other US cities," Neild says. In the first of a two-part article, GlobeSt.com asked Neild to explain the origins of the site.

Read the complete interview.

OK, that may be a wee bit premature, but we are very excited to announce the beginning of our nation-wide expansion.

You will now find a location drop-down on the home page and the right side bar that allows you to search for properties in a select city. For now, they are:

Portland, Seattle, SF Bay area, Boston, Chicago and New York City.

And, now you can list properties anywhere in the country. Any building not located in one of the above cities will go into the rather inglorious "Everywhere else" category. As soon as a city has a critical mass we'll bump it up to prime time.

I'm so proud to live in Portland. As this article aptly states, about the only thing keeping half the country away from Portland is our ridiculous 40 inches of rainfall a year. Today, SustainLane announced its US City Rankings for 2008. You guessed it, Portland is numero uno!

Thanks to Plenty, The World in Green.

Greenrenter.com guarantees you treehugging roommates who'll compost right in the bathroom!

Charles Redell of the Sustainable Industries interviewed Pam and I in writing a great summary of what GreenRenter is currently offering and our future plans.

Portland-based GreenRenter is trying to help by offering online listings of homes, apartments and office spaces with energy-efficient, good indoor air quality and other green building attributes.

We really appreciate the exposure!

As a founder of GreenRenter and an all-around sustainability enthusiast, I'm always searching the web for interesting sites. I found EcoFuse on Facebook, of all places.

EcoFuse is a relatively new website founded by a husband and wife team that, in their words, "wanted to do 'more' than
just recycle and conserve." EcoFuse provides users links to current enviro news, helpful partner sites (like GreenRenter!), and simple tips to reducing waste and carbon emissions in our own daily lives. And, in a nod to the supreme excellence of the Pacific Northwest, the founders recently relocated to the great state of Washington!

Last time I checked the site the tip-o-the-day was about reducing junk mail. And who doesn't want to do that?

Start-up challenges

When I asked EcoFuse founder Nick about the biggest challenge he and his wife faced in founding the site, he answered with what might be the most common problem plaguing all of us start-ups: "attracting and retaining users."

He offered some great tips to winning the competition for eyeballs:

• Keep your message consistent
• Fight spam in order to provide users the content they want
• Give everyone a voice

But what can I do now?

Given that EcoFuse aims to help all of us make small but important changes in our lives, I asked Nick what he wishes each of his viewers would do tomorrow that we didn't do today. It's an easy one folks:

"Recycle!!! It's SO easy and important! Gosh, if everyone did it, can you imagine the possibilities?"

Sometimes it seems the green building industry is fixated on finishes - bamboo floors, concrete counter tops, recycled glass tile. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with obsessing over materials - except when it clouds our judgement about what it means to be green. In the green building boom we've experienced up to now, the greening of existing buildings has taken a back seat to new projects, with their shiny finishes and clean lines. And the greening of demolition - the very last stage in a building's life-cycle? Not even on the map.

That's starting to change. More "deconstruction" experts, as they like to be called, are starting to offer their services and the national news media is taking note. A recent article in Forbes highlighted the work of David A. Bennink, who's currently deconstructing homes in New Orleans.