Our world faces energy concerns, global warming, climate change, water shortages, soaring housing costs, economic instability, and dwindling natural resources. In addition, an inordinate amount of construction waste is produced each day. It is essential to begin taking steps to prevent this pattern from continuing to take us down the road t environmental destruction. The engineers, architects and developers of today, more than ever, share an obligation to create new and innovative structures to turn this cycle around. Buildings and development have an enormous impact on our quality of life and the quality of our environment, both in construction and in operations. Buildings expend 40% of the world’s energy, 25% of its wood harvest and account for 16% of its water consumption 1, all resources we cannot afford to waste. Buildings of the future need to take the step beyond shelter and work places and perform as efficient, economic, environmentally sound spaces in which we can thrive and endure. It is our responsibility to utilize our knowledge and scientific research to move forward in the realm of design. Sustainable design, or “green building,” looks to create high performance buildings that improve our health as well as the health of the environment we live in.
What is Green Building?
According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), “Green or sustainable building is the practice of creating healthier and more resource-efficient models of construction, renovation, operation, maintenance, and demolition.”2 Among the many constituents of sustainable design are improvements in water usage, waste reduction, use of recycled materials, reduced energy consumption, and an aesthetically pleasing environment for inhabitants...
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United States Green Building Council, Meet the USGBC, 2003, USGBC, 27 Feb. 2004, http://www.usgbc.org/AboutUs/mission_facts.asp.
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With the alarming growth in the energy costs and environmental concern in construction projects there is a continuous demand for sustainable buildings. LEED® evaluates the sustainable performance through a 69-point credit system which mainly emphasizes Indoor environmental quality, energy and atmosphere, sustainable sites, water efficiency, materials and resources and innovation in design (Azhar, Carlton, Olsen and Ahmad (2011)).
LEED, or Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design, is a certification program for green buildings with stringent requirements for building energy efficient and environmentally responsible structures. Some requirements of this program include specific building materials, smart grid capable, gray water reclamation systems, green space minimums, high levels of insulation and low thermal transfer glass (US Green Building Council). Green buildings are a must if we are to sustain our current level of growth. Despite the higher initial cost of these buildings, the long term energy savings make these buildings a smarter choice for
After several years of use and abuse of natural resources, humanity begins to awaken from its stunned by the advances of technology, to understand the magnitude of the impact caused by its presence in the environment. At present, trends in various aspects of human activity seek to achieve a harmonious relationship with nature; one of them is the practice of interior design. The main reason because the construction industry, in particular, has incorporated especially such attention, is the result that it has proved to be one of the main sources of pollution in water, air, and noise
Shafer-Landau, R. (2013) Ethical Theory: An Anthology (Second Edition). West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Mayhew, Robert. The Journal of Ethics , Vol. 1, No. 4 (1997) , pp. 325-340
A green building (also referred to as sustainable building or green construction) is a structure that employs an approach that is responsible for the environment besides being efficient in regard to resources all through its life cycle: This is from selecting the site to designing it, constructing, operating, maintaining, renovating and demolishing it. To achieve this, the client, the engineers, the architects and the entire design team closely cooperate at all stages of a project (Yan and Paliniotis, 2006). Practicing Green Building complements and expands the conventional building design areas of comfort, durability, utility and economy.
Globally, green buildings are being recognised and accredited, leading to the introduction of various tools and indices with one common objective that is to evaluate, measure, distinguish and sets apart this uniquely designed buildings from the rest. The Diamond Building carries a Green Building Index (GBI) accreditation, a first in Malaysia. Among the achievement of the ST Diamond Building are:
The use of green materials is better for the environment because they have a positive impact on the planet. Looking at our environment today we see a place that has been facing a massive climate change. Scientists have been concerned over global warming for decades. The ongoing increase of the earth’s temperature is believed to be caused by the greenhouse effect (“Global Warming” 27). Building with green materials produces significantly lower greenhouse gas emission. Specifically, wood as a material for building products, requires considerably less energy than other building products such as steel and concrete. Wood product manufacture results in fewer greenhouse gas and other air-polluting emissions (“Green Building Benefits”). Green building also results in waste reduction. In the United States, construction and demolition creates a huge amount of solid waste. Green building limits the waste prod...
The beginnings of today's green revolution can be traced back to the environmental awareness of the 1960s and European design. New construction techniques have lead to the development of innovative materials and design concepts. Green buildings are designed, constructed and commissioned to ensure they are healthy for their occupants. Successfully designed green projects can involve an extensive array of factors, ranging from the resourceful use of materials, to careful consideration of function, climate, and location.
Well-recognized cities worldwide have built over the years great buildings with a variety of designs and concepts however consequently too much building has been making grievous decrease on energy efficiency. Now, “Green Architecture” has been popularized and as a result a modicum of energy efficiency has increased and also it has substantiated a new perspective, a new versatile way on architecture.
Tavani, Herman T. "Chapter 4 :Professional Codes of Ethics and Codes of Conduct." Ethics and Technology: Controversies, Questions, and Strategies for Ethical Computing. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2010. Print.
Sustainable design seeks to reduce negative impacts on the environment, the health and comfort of building occupants, thereby improving building performance. The basic objects of sustainability are to reduce consumption of non-renewable resources, minimal waste, and create healthy, productive environments (“Sustainable Design”). Focusing primarily on the sustainable design principles, there are five, including: low-impact materials, energy efficiency, quality and durability, design for reuse and recycling, and renewability. As sustainability appears to become the necessary trend in architecture, the question concerning the cost versus outcome of “going green” really an investment or a waste of time and money comes to mind. With our research provided below, we believe the expenses may truly be with the investment in the end.
Implementation of green concepts has been significant not only in design engineering but also in construction. Therefore the knowledge about green design has been a very important fact for the sustainable development in civil engineering. Concepts such as green buildings, carbon foot print, ecological foot print and LEED rating system have helped to achieve sustainable development for civil engineering