16 Green Building Material Qualities to Think About

16 Green Building Material Qualities to Think About

Examines 16 important qualities that green building materials should strive to achieve and that builders need to weigh during the materials selection process of a project. A well planned green building material selection process can help to ensure the best solution for a given project with given goals and constraints peculates up through the decision process.

Six Sustainable Site Planning Fundamentals

Six Sustainable Site Planning Fundamentals

Using a framework for creating sustainable site designs is one of the most realistic and effective ways for architects and other design professionals to create sustainable designs. Six fundamental concepts needed to be applied are explained in the post.

Regulating Green Building Series-Part 1: Anatomy of Green Building Regulations

Regulating Green Building Series-Part 1: Anatomy of Green Building Regulations

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.

Green Building as a Market Advantage

Green Building as a Market Advantage

This post looks at a real world case, the Gai Building in Orlando Florida that was built to LEED Silver standards and uses this to talk about some of the reasons the developer chose to go with the LEED Silver standard. It uses this example to address some of the advantages of building green and a few of the shortcomings of the LEED certification standards. It makes the case that only when a developer can determine that a proposed sustainable project is economically viable and will give the developer a definable market advantage will these projects get built in practice.

The Top 20 Green Building Trends for 2011

The Top 20 Green Building Trends for 2011

A list of top green building trends for 2011 is provided by Green building consultant, Jerry Yudelson and Tom Breunig, director of marketing, of Earth Advantage Institute.

3 HVAC Cleantech Startups Making Major Energy Efficient Moves

3 HVAC Cleantech Startups Making Major Energy Efficient Moves

With heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems using more building energy use than lighting and IT combined, they can have a major impact when it comes to how sustainable a building is. This is where innovative HVAC start-ups like Ice Energy, Optimum Energy, and Chromasun come in, with technology designed to significantly reduce HVAC building energy usage.

The Green Building Adoption Rate is Slow, Find Out The Practical Reasons Why

The Green Building Adoption Rate is Slow, Find Out The Practical Reasons Why

Despite all the headlines, and a bit of hype, in the world of commercial real estate, the number of green buildings is relatively very small and not growing at a significant rate. Only 2% of all new building construction projects receive LEED certification. Lets look at reasons why building sustainability is stalling and what can be done.

Five “Green” Retrofits Electricians Should Be Pitching to Drive Business

Five “Green” Retrofits Electricians Should Be Pitching to Drive Business

Here we present five green retrofits electricians should pitch to drive business: energy management systems and monitoring devices, relamping, solar photovoltaic (PV) systems and wind turbines, daylight harvesting, and HVAC retrofits.

Return on Investment for Green / LEED Projects

Return on Investment for Green / LEED Projects

Green buildings provide long-term savings and solid returns on investments. they also command much more than similar non-LEED buildings due to the economic benefits they offer. Soon Class A office buildings that do not attain LEED certification will see their property value decline as LEED becomes the de facto benchmark in measuring quality in construction.

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