Green Building Alliance Announces Final Product Innovation Grant Recipients

Fourth Round Brings Total Disbursements to $978,000

PITTSBURGH, June 30 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Today, Green Building Alliance
(GBA) announced the final four recipients of its Product Innovation Grants who
will share a total of $150,000. These winning Pennsylvania projects, selected
through a competitive process, all seek to develop and introduce new and
enhanced building products to the fast-growing green marketplace. This is the
fourth round of Product Innovation Grants awarded since GBA began its Green
Building Products Initiative in 2006. Overall, 19 Pennsylvania projects have
received more than $978,000. Previous grants were awarded in December 2007,
June 2008, and December 2008.

"In times of economic uncertainty, everyone is searching for greener products
to help reduce operating costs, improve employee productivity and
satisfaction, and optimize economic and environmental life cycle performance,"
said Holly Childs, GBA's executive director. "For the past two years, our
Product Innovation Grant program has encouraged collaborations between
private-sector companies and university teams throughout Pennsylvania that
support the marketplace for greening new and existing buildings. As
Pittsburgh claims the seventh-largest number of LEED(R)-certified buildings in
the U.S. and a strong, innovative local green building product market, the
city continues to be a green building thought and practice leader."

For this fourth and final round of GBA Product Innovation Grants, four of 22
proposals were selected to receive grants, including:
-- $100,000 for product and market development of thermo-treated
hardwood,
a joint project of Babcock Lumber Company and Pennsylvania State
University. The project will seek to develop technical and market
acceptance for outdoor decking and railing products made from
Pennsylvania hardwood untreated by chemicals.
-- $20,000 to develop an active air heater without a boiler, a project of
Technical Analysis & Services International, Inc. (TASI). The goal
of this effort is to produce and test an active air heater prototype
that uses a local manufacturing byproduct.
-- $20,000 to identify, design and develop sustainable solutions for
non-residential modular designs. This project team includes Carnegie
Mellon University's Center for Building Performance and Diagnostics
and Terradime, LLC.

-- $10,000 to verify the potential of polarized glazing to manage light
and
solar gain loads for building retrofits and new building construction.
This project will be completed by the School of Architecture at
Carnegie
Mellon University.

"We solicited Product Innovation Grant proposals in January from Pennsylvania
companies and researchers," explained Dr. Aurora Sharrard, GBA's research
manager and manager of the grant program. "Each one was either investigating
the development of innovative, sustainable building products or the greening
of existing product lines, or was a start-up seeking to enter the green
building product marketplace. We're very pleased with the sustained interest
in these grants from green building product manufacturers and, in the future,
look forward to offering similar financial assistance through our new
affiliation with Innovation Works' Innovation Adoption Grant Fund."

The 22 submitted proposals this round were assessed on the criteria of green
building leadership, technical merit, commercialization plan viability,
partnership resources and potential market impact. Grant award decisions were
made at the discretion of GBA on the recommendations of the Product Innovation
Grant Review Committee, which is comprised of a variety of individuals,
including consultants, manufacturers, investors, economic development
stakeholders and academic researchers. Participation on the review committee
is confidential.

Individual project sheets on the four new grant recipients are downloadable at
www.pa-greenbuildingproducts.org/product_innovation_grants.aspx. Information
about all 19 Product Innovation Grant recipients can be found by visiting
www.pa-greenbuildingproducts.org/product_innovation_grants.aspx.

About GBA
Green Building Alliance is a nonprofit organization that advances economic
prosperity and human wellbeing in Western Pennsylvania by driving market
demand for green buildings and green building products across every aspect of
the built environment.

The Product Innovation Grants are a component of GBA's Green Building Products
Initiative economic development program, which serves the entire state of
Pennsylvania. Funding for the Initiative is provided by the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania, Ben Franklin Technology Development Authority; The Heinz
Endowments; and the Richard King Mellon Foundation.

SOURCE Green Building Alliance

Dr. Aurora Sharrard, Research Manager, Green Building Alliance,
+1-412-431-0709 x6002, auroras@gbapgh.org