Green Building: An Approach Towards Sustainable Development

A building is not merely a structure with four walls and a slab over it but should provide comfort, a healthy climate, aesthetic beauty, and living standards to its users. The buildings in which we live, work, and play, safeguard us from nature's extremes. However, they also affect our health and environment in countless ways. As the environmental impact of buildings becomes more evident, a new concept called 'green building' is gaining momentum. Green Building promotes the efficiency of buildings regarding the use of water, energy, and materials while reducing its impact on individual's health and the environment through better design, construction, operation, maintenance, and removal. Through this post, I have thrown some light on this relatively new trend in the construction field.

What are Green Buildings? 

A ‘Green Building’ is defined as a building that minimizes or eliminates the negative impacts and tends to generate positive impacts on our climate and environment, during its design, construction, or operation. Green buildings help to preserve precious natural resources and improve our quality of life. These buildings provide some of the most effective means to achieving a range of global goals, such as creating sustainable and thriving communities, addressing climate change, and driving economic growth. There are various components necessary for a building to be called a ‘green building’. It should be energy-efficient and uses mainly renewable energy. It should be made water-efficient by promoting sustainable water usage. Environment-friendly building materials should be used which comply with the environmental specifications. It must tend to reduce waste and toxic materials. Proper care should be taken to ensure the indoor air quality is comfortable for the occupants.

What are the benefits of Green Buildings?

The benefits of ‘green building’ range from environmental to economic to social. When green construction methods are integrated with eco-friendly design and construction, we can take maximum advantage of environmental and economic performance. Some of the remarkable benefits of green building include: 

Environmental benefits 

Green buildings results in water savings of 20 – 30% and energy savings of 40 – 50% compared to conventional buildings. Green building helps in conserving natural resources. It also helps in improving air and water quality. Green construction practices consequently tend to protect biodiversity and the ecosystem. 

Economic benefits

Although initial costs are high sometimes, the overall cost of the building throughout its life cycle is comparatively low. Also, green buildings tend to increase the productivity of the occupants resulting in a better outcome. Research suggests that better indoor air quality can lead to improvements in the performance of up to 8 percent. 

Social benefits 

Green building improves the quality of life of the occupants. It improves occupants' health and comfort. There are also opportunities for existing homes to easily and affordably go green, becoming truly sustainable, non-toxic, zero water, and zero energy buildings. As a result, it minimizes strain on the local infrastructure.

How does Green Building save the environment?

Green building benefits the environment in a significant way. Green buildings are essentially sustainable structures that provide a better environment and reduce negative effects. Green buildings save energy consumption by providing a cooling effect, reduce the heat island effect and provide better environmental conditions. Using green concepts in our building helps to create an ecological balance between humans and the environment. Some of the ways by which green buildings save the environment include:

1. Increasing efficiency with which building and their site use, water and materials, etc.

2. Reducing building impact on human health and environment through better site planning, design, operation, and maintenance throughout its life cycle.

3. Using renewable building materials that are good for the environment which in turn reduces the carbon footprint.

4. Using green energy (geothermal, wind, and solar) that can cut back or eliminate the amount of carbon dioxide emissions.

Are Green Buildings expensive?

Green buildings are generally considered to be a lot more expensive than conventional buildings and often not worth the extra cost. But in reality, green buildings provide financial benefits that conventional buildings do not. Some of these benefits include energy and water savings, reduced waste, improved indoor air quality, greater occupant comfort resulting in increased productivity, reduced health costs, and lower operations and maintenance costs. When a green building is properly designed to maximize efficiency and minimize the use of resources, it experiences lower utility costs. For example, energy bills may be reduced up to 50 percent for a building constructed to minimum code requirements. If onsite renewable energy generation is included in the project, energy bills are lowered significantly. Although the initial cost of the green building is nearly 2% higher than the conventional building, it is a cost-effective investment in the long run. The majority of this cost is due to the increased design time, modeling costs, and time necessary to incorporate sustainable building practices into projects. In general, the earlier green building attributes are integrated into the design process, the lower the cost. Moreover, the cost of green design has dropped in the last few years as the number of green buildings has risen.

The built environment has a significant impact on the environment, human health, and the economy. By adopting green building techniques, we can maximize both environmental and economic performance. The construction and operation of a green building should promote a healthy environment for all involved. Moreover, it should not disrupt the land, water, other resources, and energy in and around the building. The ideal green building should preserve most of the natural environment around the project site without compromising with the purpose it is going to serve. It should promote smart growth and sustainable development.

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