In today’s post, we feature the LEED Proven Provider for a more streamlined review process of LEED projects, and also report on the organs-on-a-chip development for drug testing sans the cruelty to animals.

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A More Streamlined Review Process for LEED

The days of complicated review processes for LEED projects are over. 

Newly launched by the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI), the LEED Proven Provider hopes to streamline the project review by removing unnecessary work in the process. GBCI is the third-party certification body for LEED.

Says Doug Gatlin, VP of program delivery, U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and GBCI.

“LEED Proven Provider makes the LEED review process faster and more seamless. It allows GBCI to deliver faster reviews of LEED projects while still maintaining the integrity of the LEED certification process.”

Not all organizations are eligible in this new LEED designation though. As the name implies, LEED Proven Provider is proof of a good track record when it comes to LEED projects. Thus, a minimum of six (6) certified LEED projects in a single rating system family is needed for an organization to apply.

Aside from the streamlined review process, LEED Proven Provider also grants eligible organizations greater access to a LEED reviewer, which “creates an opportunity for participants and LEED reviewers to work together to enhance the LEED certification experience and facilitates direct engagement with and support for project teams.”

Organizations will receive special recognition from USGBC as well for maintaining their track record of high-quality project submissions.

Review process of LEED projects have traditionally been laborious, demanding, and complex, a badge of honor that LEED providers take pride in for subscribing to a green building standard that’s technically more rigorous than other rating systems. LEED Proven Provider hopes to change all that, without compromising quality and sustainability.

| via USGBC

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Good-bye, Animal Testing. Hopefully

Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” Well, it’s 2014, and despite the technological advances we’ve had, drug testing on animals is still the standard operating procedure in big pharmas.

This organ-on-a-chip is very animal animal friendly, seriousl

But there’s new hope in the horizon in the form of a small, clear plastic chip, with red and blue veins designed to mimic the organs of the human body.

Via Treehugger,

“The lung-on-a-chip, for example, has tiny channels for oxygen and blood. The channels are separated by a moving membrane of lung cells which imitates the tightening and lengthening of lung tissue when we breathe. With this chip, researchers can introduce diseases and treatments, and observe how the blood and lung cells respond.”

Ethical considerations have traditionally prevented pharmaceutical companies from testing on humans. Instead, our animal friends have always bore the brunt of drug experiments, all for the sake of our safety. More than 100 million frogs, cats, dogs, rats, mice and rabbits are used each year drug testing. The problem is the human body operates differently than the bodies of these animals, and drugs will inevitably have different results and side effects on both humans and animals.  

Harvard scientists at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have been beta testing on these organs-on-a-chip for five years. This July a start-up company will work on how to commercialize the chips for the medical industry. In the future, we could be seeing more improvements in the chips, particularly a way to link various chips to each other to create a larger representation of the human body.