Why Green Building?
To quote the United States Green Building Council (USGBC):
The commercial and residential building sector accounts for 38% of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in the United States per year, more than any other sector. U.S. buildings alone are responsible for more CO2 emissions annually than those of any other country except China. Most of these emissions come from the combustion of fossil fuels to provide heating, cooling and lighting, and to power appliances and electrical equipment. By transforming the built environment to be more energy-efficient and climate-friendly, the building sector can play a major role in reducing the threat of climate change.
If half of new commercial buildings were built to use 50% less energy, it would save over 6 million metric tons of CO2 annually for the life of the buildings—the equivalent of taking more than 1 million cars off the road every year.
These numbers make it clear that designing buildings taking into account modern green trends can save money and improve indoor quality of life.
What is Green Design?
“Green Design” has several other names like eco design, regenerative design, green development, sustainable design, and ecologically accountable building. Green design then is a common term for an increasingly popular and important trend in construction, architecture and other types of design work.
The philosophy behind “Green Design” supports practices and standards that reduce negative impacts, or even produce positive net effects, in the environment, and thus lessen the ecological footprint of human settlements. This often involves clean, renewable energy technologies; the use of materials that are sustainably harvested or recycled; and the implementation of other energy saving techniques which maximize efficiency and limit energy loss.
Additional hallmarks of green design include the sustainable exploitation of locally accessible inputs for energy needs and materials; and the incorporation of local climate and geographic considerations, such as solar illumination and orientation, in the design plan that leads to the reduction of energy needs, and an increase in overall comfort.
LEED
The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System™ is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance green buildings. LEED gives building owners and operators the tools they need to have an immediate and measurable impact on their buildings’ performance. LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection, and indoor environmental quality.
LEED provides a roadmap for measuring and documenting success for every building type and phase of a building lifecycle. Specific LEED programs include:
* New Commercial Construction and Major Renovation projects
* Existing Building Operations and Maintenance
* Commercial Interiors projects
* Core and Shell Development projects
* Homes
* Neighborhood Development
* Guidelines for Multiple Buildings and On-Campus Building Projects
* LEED for Schools
* LEED for Retail
Other Sites
US Green Building Council - LEED Information
