Alex Wilson is a Vermont-based writer focused on green building, energy, the environment, and the outdoors. He is the founder and executive editor of Environmental Building News, published by BuildingGreen, Inc., which he started in 1985. BuildingGreen, based in Brattleboro, Vermont, now employees 20 people.
In the green building field, Alex is the author of Your Green Home (New Society Publishers, 2006), and the coauthor of the Consumer Guide to Home Energy Savings (ACEEE, 1st edition 1990; 9th edition, 2007), and the Rocky Mountain Institute’s textbook Green Development: Integrating Ecology and Real Estate (John Wiley & Sons, 1998). He has also written hundreds of articles on green building and related topics for such magazines as Fine Homebuilding, Architectural Record, Landscape Architecture, Journal of Light Construction, and Popular Science.
In the outdoors arena, Alex is the coauthor of four books published by the Appalachian Mountain Club: the Quiet Water Canoe & Kayak Guides covering New Hampshire and Vermont, Southern New England, Maine, and New York. The New Hampshire and Vermont Guide, which came out in 1992, is now in its third edition (2010), while the other three books are in their second editions.
Alex has been widely recognized for his work in green building. In 1993, he was awarded the first annual Lifetime Achievement Award by the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association. In 2008, he received the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership Award for Education. In 2010, he was the second recipient of the Hanley Award for Vision and Leadership in Sustainable Housing.
Alex was a board member of the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association from 1986 through 1992 (after serving as executive director from 1980-85), and he served on the board of the U.S. Green Building Council from 2000 through 2005. He is currently a trustee of the Conservation and Research Foundation and the Vermont Chapter of The Nature Conservancy. Locally, he served on the Dummerston, Vermont Planning Commission for 12 years, and is currently a member (and founding chair) of the Dummerston Energy Committee. He serves on many other committees in the Brattleboro area, all focused on creating a better, more vibrant and sustainable community.