Buildings

Buildings
Buildings

Overview

Buildings have an extensive impact on the environment in terms of energy use, water consumption, electricity consumption, and carbon dioxide emissions. Traditional approaches to new construction, renovation, deconstruction, and operations and maintenance of buildings will do little to improve these statistics. However, education within the industry can influence positive change. 

For example, we can now dispel the common myth that sustainable design strategies necessitate exorbitant cost premiums. The vast majority of current research shows that a focus on integrated design, setting environmentally sustainable goals, a focus on materials reuse and recycling, and using full-cost accounting to measure return on investment are the crucial issues for successful green building projects — not a bigger budget.
 
Traditional Approaches identifies the general categories under which building projects have traditionally fallen:
  1. New Construction
  2. Renovation
  3. Demolition
  4. Operations and Maintenance (O&M)
Local governments seeking to green their built landscape must overcome two significant Environmental Challenges:
  1. Overcoming the perceived and actual costs associated with investments in green building practices, and
  2. Providing education on the environmental, operational, and fiscal benefits of environmentally sustainable buildings
  3. Proper Investment in Operations & Maintenance
  1. Consider Green Building Standards  
  2. Utility Rate Structures
  3. Building Performance Disclosure
 
Three of the most effective approaches to green buildings are examined under Sustainable Strategies:
  1. Integrated Design
  2. Sustainable Building Goals
  3. Green Building Codes

 

Video: Integrated Design
 

Integrated Design: Southface from Sustainable Cities Institute on Vimeo.

 

 

Click here for a comprehensive overview of the Buildings Section including Approaches, Challenges, Principles and Strategies.

In the United States, buildings are responsible for almost half of all energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions annually. Seventy-six percent of all power plant-generated electricity is used just to operate buildings. If current trends continue, annual energy consumption in the U.S. may increase by 37 percent over the next twenty years. 

The benefits a city can expect to see from green building practices include the opportunity to cut down on every category of waste associated with construction. Today's average high performance building is markedly more efficient:

  • Cuts energy use by 24 percent to 50 percent
  • Reduces carbondioxide emissions by 33 percent to 39 percent
  • Lowers water consumption by an average of 40 percent
  • Eliminates up to 70 percent of solid waste

Operators of buildings who take a longer view and value wise investments are rewarded. Green buildings can achieve an 8 percent to 9 percent reduction in operating costs, and a 7.5 percent increase in overall value.

The building sector is the largest consumer of fossil fuels and natural resources in the world today.  It is also one of the biggest polluters. Worldwide, an estimated 70 percent of the average city's greenhouse gas emissions are generated by buildings. Unless radical changes are implemented in planning, design, construction and operation, the energy consumption of buildings globally will triple by 2050.

In addition to the negative environmental impacts, buildings have significant economic and social effects at the local, regional and global levels. Some of the problems generated by buildings today include:
  • Inefficient buildings with higher operation and maintenance costs
  • Wasted energy and water
  • Increased air and water pollution
  • Damage to human health
  • Rise in city temperatures from urban heat island effect
  • Significant amounts of construction waste
Using methods that range from simple to drastic, changes can be made to current and future buildings to curb carbon emissions and waste.

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