January 12, 2009

Green Building what? Green Building Who?

by Environmental Building Strategies in Green Building, Uncategorized Tags: Building Green, climate, climate change, Green Building, sustainability No Comments

What do we mean by green building?
Buildings of the world consume:
• 40% of the world’s energy & materials
• 25% of the wood harvested
• 17% of our water
The average American house uses:
• 13,127 board feet of lumber
• 6,212 square feet of sheathing
• 2,000 square feet of flooring
In the U.S., buildings account for:
• 36% of total electricity consumption
• 62% of electricity use
• 30% of greenhouse gas emissions
• 37% of ozone depletion potential

The kicker — Americans spend 90% of our time indoors.

This is not a sustainable lifestyle. We can not function as a society this way. In order to survive and allow our kids the ability to survive, we must refocus our attention. This way of life is literally killing us.
The environmental impact we see is the direct result of our habits. We have habitually built unsustainably and raped our resources. And the stuff we’ve seen in documentaries such as Inconvenient Truth is a direct result of the building industry. Let me repeat that and make sure to read this slowly – Architects, builders, contractors and engineers are the direct cause of our climate crisis.
Now I realize that is a bold statement – but shoving polluted air into a building and specifying highly toxic carpeting and using violently dangerous paints, coatings and adhesives is no ones fault but our own. “The rise in energy costs, shortage of building materials and growing consumer demands are driving this market to seek out better and more efficient ways to build our buildings. In addition, new legislation, stricter building codes, and rising health costs are forcing builders to build green whether they want to or not.”

At the same time these are the people who can empower the change we need to see. Architects, engineers, and construciton professionals can affect great change to our environment and have the ability to “tip” us into a sustainable society.

“Green building (also known as “sustainable,” “ecological,” and “eco-designed”) is a way of looking at buildings in terms of reducing energy use, conserving water, improving indoor air quality, and reducing dependence on our natural resources.”

Doesn’t that sound nice – living in a nicer, cleaner, more healthy environment? Or does choking on forced air from archaic HVAC systems sound fun? I’ll let you decide…

Reference: http://www.greenerbuildings.com/blog/2005/09/16/ask-green-architect-top-ten-green-building-questions