26 January 2012 | Alan Bouquet
Construction

 

A new build green building in California

So much emphasis is put on how we deal with fossil fuels and emissions, it is easy to forget that significant energy savings can be made by building sustainable housing and retrofitting existing housing.

There are three very simple principles that can be followed to achieve this: efficiency in energy, water and other resource use, protecting occupant health and employee productivity and reducing waste, pollutants and environmental degradation. This can involve building a house from entirely natural materials to designing a house which requires less artificial light to illuminate it.

Green buildings however, should always be built on Brownfield sites, and sprawl should be avoided at all costs. The techniques behind green building all require limited impacts on the environment and human health, taking advantage of renewable resources and the use of plants and trees wherever possible.

Some examples of these techniques are: permeable surfaces like packed gravel and permeable materials instead of asphalt or concrete, green rooves and rain gardens, and sustainable wall insulation materials. Another key is using local resources rather than importing building materials at a high carbon cost.

In the age of greenwashing, it is reassuring that there are less assumptions surrounding certain green building techniques. Scientific evaluation of different ideas using lifecycle analysis is now more common and as such different green building techniques can be analysed in more detail. Also verifiable accrediting systems like LEED and the Green Globes mean the industry can be better regulated.

Green building is surging around the world and is becoming a more mainstream, acceptable way to both enhance the local environment as well as reducing emissions and reducing costs.