Pros And Cons Of A Green Building

Current trends of making houses sustainable and use zero-net energy will take time and research to be implemented most effectively and used on a large scale, but it is the drastic change that is needed to solve the issue. There are many different combinations and approaches to a sustainable zero energy building. In order to describe the current trends I will look at two different buildings, the ZOE building located at Discovery Park and America’s most efficient home built in Salt Lake City, Utah. I will also explain LEED certification, HERS and ENERGY STAR in order to explain how the efficiency of sustainable buildings and appliance are nationally measured.

Green buildings could become one of the main factors to preserve our rapidly decaying environment. There is no easy way to define a green building, but a green building is essentially a structure that amplifies the positives and mitigates the negatives throughout the entire life cycle of the building (Kriss, 2014). There are many definitions for a green building, but all of them include the planning, designing, constructing, and operating of the building while taking into huge considerations of the energy use, water use, indoor air environment, materials used and the effect it has on the site the green building is being built on. The first green buildings dates back to as far as the 1970’s, when solar panels went from experiments to reality. Green buildings were not as popular as they are today due to their extremely high pricing. With technology rapidly growing, solar panels are becoming cheaper and cheaper, making the transition to creating green buildings more affordable. This is the primary reason for the increased growth of green buildings today. A modern company that is paving the way to the growth of green buildings named LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, focuses primarily on new and effective ideas for environmentally friendly buildings projects. With more than 60,000 commercial projects worldwide and 1.7 million square feet being certified every day, LEED is one of the leading groups for promoting green buildings. LEED has popularized the entire

There are several ecological and environmental benefits of green roofs which have consequentially brought in increasing interests in this technology. A green roof, as a “carpeting” of plants on the roof of buildings, offers many benefits in addition to enhancing its aesthetic value. Primarily, green roofs have the ability to delay the storm runoff peak occurrence, thus reducing the peak flow rate and mitigating flood risks. Another benefit is its thermal insulation potential that reduces the urban heat island effect. They also help with pollution abatement, carbon sequestration, biodiversity conservation, and general improvement of life quality in urban ecosystems (Xiaosheng et al. 2014).

What is stopping America, the world leader, from taking the most responsible step of them all? These questions led me to a viewpoint by Auden Schendler, the director of environmental affairs at Aspen Skiing Company in Colorado. In the his viewpoint, he states that using eco-friendly building practices and materials remains uncommon. Schendler cites some of the reasons for the slow pace of the movement's growth are obvious: cost; cultural and structural resistance; lack of talent or expertise; lack of research, funding, and awareness (“Schendler’). In this viewpoint- one thing stood out to me the most; The lack of awareness. We know that if something seems daunting, we are less likely to risk it. Especially when it comes to our businesses, schools, and homes. That lack of awareness is even heightened by the cost to build green and receive LEED certification. Building LEED requires higher costs due to the newer alternative tools and techniques used to protect the environment in the construction process. Since money is what drives the world, I wanted to gain a skeptic's point of view to better understand this argument. Ted Smalley Brown, a journalist who covers business, industry, and the environment, argues that the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) initiative is

According to the article, the single largest chunk of energy consumption is in the heating and cooling of buildings. This amounts to 31% of total final energy consumption. It mentions a man named “Mr. Liebreich” who had difficulty findings builders who were skilled in energy savings techniques. He had to follow them around to ensure they were properly taping the insulating boards and follow other energy saving techniques.

Have you ever wondered, how can I make my school greener? Well, there is many ways to make your school greener,you just have to think ¨GREEN.¨ Many buildings aren't doing enough to become greener ,or just don't get what it means or don't know how to start to get sustainable. Being sustainable means to have some kind of maintenance, or control on something,defending a particular thing against a threat. Like mcdonald's for example,most of them do not have recycling bins,or most of factories release lots of toxic gases into the air and that's when air pollution takes place,so why not start something to fix these things. And with the help of the Clean Air Act (which states that the government will help out on any

The Centre for Interactive Research on Sustainability (CIRS) is designed to be the greenest building in North America and its continual development in sustainable practices has allowed the building to be an internationally recognized leader. Thus, it is certified LEED Platinum. The CIRS has been a UBC project since 1999 – as it went through several iterations, location, inhabitants and owners over the period of time. Simultaneously, significant advancements were made in sustainable technology, public awareness and green building policies. Therefore, the design

In order to clear up the important risks and common issues related to green building projects, let’s analyze the following litigation cases:

Changing the way energy in buildings is monitored, controlled and consumed can bring down CO2 emissions and reduce costs (Faucheux & Nicolaï, 2011) .

In the book Building Green Skyscrapers by Mary Reid, the solution that would be more effective to solve the problems that skyscrapers create is the Hearst Tower in New York City because this tower saves water and steel. First, the Hearst Tower saves water and also reuses it at the same time. It is used as a cooling system and for watering the plants. In the text, it states “The waterfall cools and adds moisture and freshness to the dry indoor air. The water comes from rainwater that the Hearst Tower collects on the roof” (Reid 20). This proves that this building is very eco-friendly and that it can help people save water. Next, the Hearst Tower saves steel, because they used the steel that they recycled to build the buildings. In the text,

The human people population is constantly growing and the demand for natural resources thus grows with it. Food is a limited resource which is essential for survival, currently some parts of the world are under food shortage due to famines, draught war and poor agricultural skills. Throughout history we depended on agriculture for the production of food. Agriculture got a burst in the 1950s during the green revolution were lots of chemical for pest, weeds control were discovered. The green revolution did not largely benefited developing countries due to high priced chemicals, most countries resulted to deforestation to clear land for farming Agricultural skills alone are not enough to support the human people population, it is predicted that by 2050 the would not be enough land for farming to feed the population. The green revolution caused a lot of people due to the improper use of chemical and their

By the definition of sustainability, it is the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level. When talking about sustainability through the environment, sustainability has another meaning. It’s the avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain and ecological balance. Anything with the word green is often associated with the label environmental friendly. Did you ever wonder if green buildings are worth the cause or even worth the amount of money it takes to fund? There are many benefits and negatives for green buildings.

There have been many adverse changes to the global environment, and the life around it is being threatened by Global warming. Green Technology can help prevent global disaster and improve the ways we produce organic material to recycle cleaner material for a better world. Without the use of green cleaner technology, there have been changes to the world such as global warming, and its harder to prevent that if the cost of green technology is high making it harder for people and business to obtain green technology. There are also people that worried that Green technology is not as efficient and are uncertain about performance.

A roof coating provides a monolithic, fully adhered, fluid applied roofing membrane with flexible properties that allows it to expand and contract with the temperature without incurring damage. It can be applied over any commercial roof substrate, curing to form a seamless 100% acrylic elastomeric membrane engineered to seal the entire roof, prolonging the roof life. The benefits of a “cool roof” elastomeric roof coating are tremendous for both your building and its commercial roofing in Fort Worth. In the following, we look at some of those benefits.

In our world, today we make more and more discoveries every day and with that new knowledge comes innovation. Since the engineering building was first built in the late 1890’s, there have been many advances in becoming a more environmentally friendly building. It is time to transform this historical building into what will be one of the greenest buildings on any campus in the world.