The Concept of Green Building
The other terms for green building are green construction or sustainable building. A building passes through the following stages in its lifecycle:
- Planning
- Design
- Construction
- Operation
- Maintenance
- Renovation
- Demolition
Green building refers to the structure and the application of processes throughout the life cycle of a building. The purpose of the green building is to reduce the harmful impacts on the natural environment and the climate. This will lead to the preservation of natural resources and improvement in our quality of life.
Goals of Green Building
- Mitigating negative impacts – Buildings all over the world consumes a huge share of energy, electricity, water, and minerals. 18% of the global emission and 9 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide comes from buildings. In the absence of green building emissions from buildings will double. Buildings comprise a large portion of land on earth.
- Sustainable development – It refers to the use of natural resources by the present generation without neglecting the future generation. Sustainable development is becoming a crucial factor because the world’s population is growing at an alarming rate. The mechanism of green building can contribute to facilitating the conservation of resources.
- Reduction of energy consumption – Wooden buildings will consume lesser amount of energy in comparison to buildings made of bricks, concrete or steel. Designers of green building are trying to reduce air leakage from buildings in order to save energy. There is an increase in energy generation from solar power, wind power, hydropower, and biomass.
- Reduction in water consumption – Engineers are installing various technologies inside a building to recycle the water disposed of as waste. It will result in low demand for water from local aquifers.
- Reduction in material consumption – Non-toxic and renewable materials for the construction of a building are renewed to achieve material efficiency.
- Indoor air quality management – It is necessary to provide people with a better quality of life. Management of air quality inside the building will prevent the growth of bacteria, dust mites and viruses.
- Optimal operation and maintenance – Proper maintenance and operation of a building can ensure the achievement of other objectives of green building.
- Waste Management – Green building tries to reduce wastage of materials by converting waste into fertilizers.
- Electrical efficiency – Another objective of green building is the saving of energy.
Trends in Green Building
Here are some drastic changes which we can expect in 2018:
Utilization of Workspace
Organizations are renovating the lobby, hallways, classrooms, staircases, ceilings, doors and meeting spaces. They are using light, modern, mobile and multi-purpose furniture. This will increase the available space within to meet some other purpose. Many companies are shifting from rural to urban area. Therefore, for providing space for them, apartments and hotel rooms are becoming smaller in size.
Wellness
According to the general consensus, wellness is good for business. The working environment can have a tremendous impact on the quality of work of employees. Therefore, many industries are adopting this new discipline. There is a direct relationship between productivity of employees and Green building.
Flexibility
Extreme weather and natural disaster which can have a severe effect on industries. Therefore, Developers are framing flexibility by undertaking insurance to mitigate risk. The infrastructure of buildings should be such that it can withstand disaster.
Certifications
Now more options are available to measure the resilience, sustainability, and wellness of a building. It will help to measure the impact of a building’s health and wellness features. Certification can ensure that architects have taken insurance to reduce risk. Most of the companies approach to LEED for certification. LEED certification helps companies to build high performing and sustainable commercial and residential buildings.
Innovations
2018 will be a witness of great innovation. In this year everybody will come across modular and highly adaptable building designs. Technological advancements will generate new projects and create new solutions for businesses. Everything will become smart this year and it would be possible to achieve whatever we thought of before.
Sustainability
This year has an expectation to see more variety and combinations of certifications. In green building, buildings will use healthy materials to provide a healthy lifestyle. Sustainability has a big role to play in curbing climate change.
Human Factor
Consumers and investors are getting more aware of their expectations from Corporate Social Responsibility. Consumers and employees are expecting more from companies. So companies are expecting architects to construct buildings to represent brands along with sustainable and wellness related experiences. More questions on CSR activities can come from customers. the company which will be able to give the best answers to consumers will be the winner. Social justice and equitable distribution of wage among employees can have a direct impact on business.
So you can understand that everyone should resort to green building. But the criticizing issue with regard to green building is the price. Still, the benefits of green buildings outweigh the payback period of its investment. There will be a reduction in the greenhouse effect and the whole world will be benefited from it. Therefore, it is beneficial for industries to adopt green building.