Green buildings are essential components of sustainable urban development. By minimising energy and water consumption, they help combat climate change while simultaneously saving on costs associated with maintaining them.
Human benefits of green buildings for human occupants include improved lighting and air quality; indoor contaminants have been linked with lung and respiratory illnesses, thus improving productivity, morale and comfort levels in an indoor environment.
Energy Efficiency
Green buildings movement aims to increase energy efficiency and decrease environmental impact by supporting efficient heating, cooling and lighting systems – such as using passive solar design to minimize winter heating and summer cooling costs while also employing renewable energy sources such as wind or solar.
Buildings consume vast amounts of energy, so green designs aim to reduce this consumption through sustainable site planning, rainwater management, landscaping practices, onsite renewable generation and efficient plumbing fixtures. Furthermore, green construction promotes using materials with reduced environmental impacts and that promote responsible sourcing and circular economic models.
Green designs frequently incorporate life cycle assessment (LCA) methodologies that evaluate impacts from conception through disposal, such as embodied energy consumption, global warming potential, resource consumption, air pollution and waste generation. This approach provides a more complete picture of environmental performance – increasingly becoming a factor when reviewing industry standards, codes or rating structures such as LEED.
Water Efficiency
Green design is becoming an essential element of global potable water usage. Buildings can reduce their water usage with techniques like xeriscaping and native landscaping that eliminate the need for irrigation; low-flush toilets and faucets; greywater systems reusing used washing machine water as irrigation water for non-potable uses such as lawn watering; low flush toilets and faucets; greywater reuse systems that recycle washing machine and sink water back into non-potable uses such as watering the lawn.
Green buildings’ energy efficiencies translate to lower utility bills and increased appraised values, making them more desirable for buyers. Unfortunately, green construction may cost more upfront; so buyers should carefully weigh increased construction costs against potential long-term savings.
Green buildings can contribute towards meeting several Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), such as improved indoor environmental quality, decreased energy and water consumption and responsible production and consumption. Unfortunately, their effect is still limited and requires further research and development efforts; nonetheless, green buildings play a pivotal role in global sustainability’s future.
Materials
Utilising recycled and renewable materials in construction reduces its environmental footprint while being more cost-effective than conventional building materials.
As one example of green office design, wood can be utilized in office buildings to reduce energy use and carbon dioxide emissions. Wood stores carbon while it grows and can be recycled when companies cut down trees for construction purposes.
Bamboo has become increasingly popular as an environmentally-friendly material used in buildings. One of the fastest-growing plants, it provides an ecological alternative to timber which takes years to mature.
Green building designers often assess all environmental impacts in the design phase by conducting a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). This involves considering embodied energy, operating energy and heating/cooling/lighting/water use energy usage as part of an LCA. Furthermore, an LCA looks at how construction projects will integrate within an existing ecosystem or neighborhood while taking transportation patterns and using solar power for energy provision into account.
Indoor Air Quality
Air quality is of utmost importance when considering green buildings, as poor indoor environmental quality can contribute to respiratory ailments, fatigue and long-term illness. Therefore, green structures emphasize fresh air intake through fresh air intake ducts or filters installed within them, VOC (volatile organic compound) filter systems to minimize VOC emission into the atmosphere, natural daylighting techniques as an alternative light source and reduced artificial lighting costs.
Green building occupants tend to report higher satisfaction with ventilation, air quality and lighting than those in traditional buildings, with lower instances of coughs/sneezes and neck/shoulder pain reported by them.
Studies of IEQ in green buildings are limited by their reliance on self-reported data and do not control for variables like building size, location and certification system. Future research should expand beyond LEED studies to include investigations of other health-focused standards such as WELL.
As building codes specify minimum construction standards, green design goes above and beyond by using premium materials that outlive their conventional counterparts, as well as energy efficient appliances, insulation techniques and construction practices that reduce drafts – leading to lower utility bills overall.