Reduce, Reuse, Recycle… In this post Bob goes into some detail what this means in practice for building green; listing various practices that builders can use in order to achieve their these sustainability goals. The post covers such subjects as runoff, site disturbance, materials etc. as well as the importance of sustainable design practices that reduce the impact of the built space on the surrounding environment both during construction and during the buildings life.
This post, a part of five part series on green building regulation looks at the anatomy of green building regulations identifying three main types of regulations, which are command and control, in other words building codes and such; financial incentives, like tax breaks; and non-financial incentives such as increases in floor to area ratio, building height or density for building green.
I’m not even talking about the energy savings, cost savings and environmental benefits though. I’m going to focus on tax credits. A number of places have mandated green roofs under certain circumstances; Toronto, Tokyo and Switzerland to name a few. Another approach that’s often more agreeable to building owners and developers is the voluntary opportunity to receive tax credits.
This five part article series on green buildings (also known as sustainable buildings) attempts to answer the following fundamental question: What is meant when someone says “green building” — what exactly are they talking about? In short a green building, is one that is designed, built, renovated, and operated in a resource-efficient manner and that minimizes its environmental impact. It promotes: Energy efficiency, material efficiency, water efficiency and healthful building environment. And generally the term implies that the structure addresses all four of these principle aspects in one manner or another.
With the world turning its attention to the environment, companies across the country are spending more time focusing on creating and implementing “green” programs and jobs that will make their workplace more environmentally conscious. In fact, one-in-ten employers say they have added “green jobs,” otherwise known as environmentally-focused positions, in the last 12 months, according to a new national survey of more than 2,500 hiring managers by CareerBuilder. The survey was conducted between February 20 and March 11, 2009.
There may never be a better time to begin new building retrofits and investments in energy efficiency than the climate that prevails today. Commercial and residential buildings accounted for 39 percent of the total US energy consumption. Lowering these on-going expenditures can have such an impact on the bottom line for building operators and owners that this may represent one of the safest and most lucrative places to invest in. The green building sector offers many opportunities for retrofitting existing buildings to increase their energy efficiency lower their water usage or storm water runoff and so forth that present a whole slew of skilled labor and small business ideas for enterprising individuals and contractors willing to make the leap as well as largely untapped growth opportunities for larger corporations.
