Green Building
The environmental, sustainability, or “green” movement has been around since the mid-20th century. However, due to various cultural, political, social, and technological factors, the trend towards going “green,” or becoming environmentally friendly, has almost become a norm in most industries, whether it is automobile manufacturing or home building. Global warming has been a growing concern all over the world, and green building has been one way to cease and, in some cases, combat some of the damage that has already been done to the environment. Green construction has been a rapidly growing industry, especially considering that the real estate market is currently in an early recovery stage, post-recession. Inc. recently ranked it as one of the top industries of 2014. Additionally, the US Green Building Council stated that “total revenue across the industry should grow to $245 billion by 2016” (Lapowsky).
Green building is producing a structure that has minimal to beneficial effects on the environment and human health in the most environmentally-friendly way. The goals of a green structure are to efficiently use water, gas, electricity, and other resources, while preserving the health of the inhabitants and improving their productivity. Additionally, green buildings strive to create no waste and pollution, resulting in minimal impact on the environment.
The greenest building is one that is not built, per se. The building process usually harms a project site, negatively affecting the environment around it. Also, it is for this reason that is very favorable to take on a retrofit project, where the builder rebuilds an existing structure to be more environmentally-friendly. Efficiency is paramount in green...
... middle of paper ...
...ignificant savings in energy costs. Additionally, the environmental benefits are beneficial to the owners and users of the project. Inhabitants will reap the benefits of improved health, thanks to efficient circulation, air, and HVAC systems. The lower overall operating costs offset the significant up-front costs of the project.
All in all, green building is gaining significant momentum as the new major trend in the construction industry. The payoff in employee health, community benefits, energy efficiency, construction process efficiency, and efficient use of waste is worth the significant up-front cost. This trend will proliferate, and green building will likely become an industry norm. According to the US Green Building Council, “Within the next two years, more than half of all commercial and institutional construction will have a decided tint of green.”
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
Generational conflicts, political strife, environmental regulations, stakeholders in big oil, and many more hurdles affect the push to fully sustainable economies around the world and even here in America. In a world where coal, oil, and natural gas are limited, countries are gobbling it all up as fast as they can before other poorer countries come on the grid. Even though America and other countries gobble up these resources the life of the people is still a struggle to meet basic needs. Sustainability is an intermingling of resource use and protection of the “quality of life”, it is met by using resources sparingly and by recycling or reducing the use of other non-renewable resources to provide for our immediate need, but also to conserve and protect the needs of the next generation and to improve the quality of all the lives to come.
All in all, the efforts put in place help to ensure low energy rates for business and residents while also providing economic resources and opportunities for residents in my
This paper reports a feasibility study of constructing an extensive green roof on a future multi-storey carpark building in Singapore. In-depth technical analysis on each layer of the green roof, benefits analysis on society, environment and economy and financial analysis have been performed. Research on the contractor company to build this carpark in Singapore is also identified together with the local incentive schemes that support this green structure. Throughout the analyses, a conclusion based on cost-benefit analysis has been drawn which concludes that an extensive green roof on a carpark building will be a good investment.
In conclusion, the designers and builders of the tower have an undesirable job: creating a building that is functional, modern, sustainable and unique. At the same time it is honoring the memory of the people that died in and around the buildings that stood there before. While the green sustainable features have been criticized for being too expensive, they will do more than save just water, electricity and emissions. They and the grace of the building will inspire a generation of green and safe skyscrapers for the twenty-first century. This building has become one of the safest, environmentally friendly and expensive ever built, but as critics slate the building for various reasons, one cannot take away the determination through political, social and economic status that designers and workers have created such a beautiful building with great meaning.
Whether you are considering building new or simply renovating, there are many verdant options that a company can use to reduce expenses. There is a price difference present between the costs of traditional and eco-friendly building materials. Typically these costs contribute about 2-3% towards the increase on price when choosing to use green building materials (Lawson, 2009). At first you think 2 - 3%, really is not significant at all, however if you consider many of the larger companies easily spends upwards of 5 – 6 million dollars on new constructions. That is quiet a magnitude of money; ranging anywhere from $100,000 – $180,000 in extra investments, depending on the options that are chosen.
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.
Green energy is good because, its domains are economics, ecology, and politics, and it will benefits the environment and plays a big role in the society today. Green energy is so sustainable architects continue to envision the utopian cities of the future, but one thing is certain; innovation means sustainability. In the midst of a global ecological crisis, architects and designers are relentlessly pursing design strategies that manage to mitigate the toxic byproducts of our consumption habits, while maximizing our use of sustainable energy sources. Meeting these challenges means more deeply integrating green technologies like wind and solar power, natural climate controls and space age materials into the building processes (Macher).
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.
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.
Fowler, Stacey. Building the future: Sustainable building materials come of age. Environmental News Network. September 25, 2001. www.enn.com.
For the past thirty to forty years, construction, technologies, and practices had hardly changed. From the drawing boards to finished product, building science stayed very conventional and for the most part simple. According to Building Performance Construction Services, “Builders are adverse to change.”1 They had a system and it worked, so why change it? Statistically proven, over the past couple of years there has been a significant increase in competition and customer demand. Thus, forcing companies to use advanced building materials, techniques, and technology to keep up to date in the competitive world.
The term “green” manufacturing can be defined in two ways. The first term is the manufacturing of “green” products, used in renewable energy systems and clean technology equipment of all kinds. The next term is the “greening” of manufacturing which reducing pollution and waste by minimizing natural resource use, recycling and reusing waste products. Green Manufacturing is a method for manufacturing that minimizes waste and pollution and conserve resources. It slows the depletion of natural resources and also lowering the extensive amounts of trash that enter landfills. Its emphasis is on reducing parts, reusing components and rationalizing materials to help make products more efficient to build. In addition, Green Manufacturing involves not just the use of environmental design of products and use of environmentally friendly raw materials, but also eco-friendly packing, destruction, distribution or reuse after the lifetime of the product.
Environmentally friendly construction will have a positive impact on the environment by reducing pollution in the environment. According to Sarah Bucci, green building will “Prevent the emission of 52.2 million tons of global warming pollution every year by 2030, the equivalent of taking over 9.2 million cars off the road” (parag. 6). Greenhouse emission is the release of gases into the atmosphere that are harmful to the environment. These gases contribute to global warming and climate change because they prevent heat from passing through the ozone layer. This suggests that by constructing eco-friendly buildings, the impact of greenhouse emission will significantly be reduced. If more construction companies were to build greener, it would be the same as removing the pollution caused by the millions of ca...