Sustainability and green practices generally refers to the use of materials that are easily renewable while at the same time trying to ensure a safe balance for the use of scarce materials. However it can be noted that these two terms are not the same despite being used interchangeably in most fields. Sustainability entails the use of materials in a rate at which they can be effectively replenished, this can be taken for example the use of trees as a fuel where if we plant tress at a similar rate that we consume them then that practice is sustainable since they won’t get depleted.
This term however is meant to refer to a wider array of building technologies that ensure a safe balance in the use of scarce resources is used. This is to ensure that humans exist indefinitely without depleting such resources (Kibert, 2008). The next term is green building practices; this refers to building technologies which aim at conserving our environment. Since the conservation of our environment is broadly understood, this refers to the use of designs, materials, layouts and configurations of building and their immediate environment that won’t lay much demand on energy resources, strain on the building materials and their effect on our environment. The world’s construction industry derives over 40% of their construction materials directly from the earth (Ma, 2011). This coupled with high rate of construction in developed and developing countries has the effect that if these resources are not used in an economical and in a way that they can be replenished way, they will end up being depleted and future generations may suffer or the existence of humankind on planet earth may be jeopardized too. The global greenhouse gas emissions are greatly contributed by buildings contributing over 24% of greenhouse gases (Alam, Aslam, & Khaleel, 2012).
Human activities are a threat to the environment with increasing energy demands both in households and industrial energy leading to use of energy sources that are adding carbon emissions to our atmosphere. As a result humans have been faced with the need to come up with intelligent ways that can ensure that the action of destroying our ozone is mitigated through use of cleaner sources of energy and the overall reduction in energy consumption.
The concept of building is well understood on civil and architectural engineering, all these fields incorporate the concepts of sustainability in all their design to maintain a balance within the environment. The planting of trees is sustainable in that it leads to reduction in carbon emissions. The conservation of water is also a crucial aspect in designs for buildings. Technologies that aim at harvesting rain water, filtering and treating it for safe human consumption all contribute to green technologies (Miller, 2011). The buildings too being constructed need to be energy efficient in that the amount of energy consumed within a given unit of a building should be kept to a minimum. As such it has seen developments on solar, wind energies and the use of transparent walls to allow penetration of light thus avoiding the use of electricity that may have been generated using fossil fuels. The buildings outer shell designs influence the way abuilding interacts with the environment thus affecting the amount of energy consumed within such units (Glasson, Therivel, & Chadwick, 2006).
Within buildings, the waste produced must also be handled in safe ways so as to avoid transfer of pathogens. The effluents from living rooms can be recycled to use the water again in a healthy and in sanitation ways. For less impacts of buildings on the environment, recent technologies advocate for the use of lightweight as is the case with wooden and steel materials in building structures (Miller, 2011). The construction materials need to be ecological, recyclable, environmental friendly, have high performance characteristics and be healthy.
Objectives
The objectives of this study are to establish the existing green technologies in the construction industry. This research paper will take a deep outlook of the application of those technologies and factor their advantages and disadvantages. Shortcomings such as initial cost have been noted to be a major drawback in implementing such systems. The research paper will, take an in-depth look of how such technologies are applied and compare them with their precursors on their suitability. This paper aims to analyze findings by scholars and argue on their agreement toward facts that have shaped the recent trends in construction industry. This paper intends to take a deep finding of the activities carried out by LEEDS (leadership in energy and environmental design). The methods stated herein will be judged on their performances evaluated from reliable facts and the rationale used to recommend the viability of the existing delivery processes.
Scope
Generally sustainability and green building practices research involve an in-depth looking at the shortcomings that arise due to failure to observe measures to counter the effects of using unsustainable building materials and practices. The research in this paper not only talks about the effects but the measures that have been implemented in the technological world to come up with measures that ensure sustainability in the construction industry. This paper looks at the effects and solutions on a global scale factoring the technical, social and environmental aspects of the whole issue on sustainability. The work in this research paper includes the new and technologically advanced methods, their economic relevance, social impacts and the applied research methods. Sustainable development has shaped the construction industry since 1980’s with ever reducing natural resources most notably nonrenewable resources (Håkansson, Höjer, Howlett, & Jain, 2013).
Literature review
Sustainability and green building practices
The terms sustainability and green building techniques is aimed at eliminating the impacts of human action on the environment, reduce the consumption of natural and nonrenewable resources thus creating a sustainability of the built environment (Yates & Castro-Lacouture, 2016). The relevance and the importance of sustainability and green building practices will continue to increase leading to more emphasis in better technologies. Secondly these practices aim at creating economic and financial gain to the society through implementation of technologies that are conscious of sustainability, to boost the optimality in performance of the people using the given structures and lastly to bring development and sustainable planning that caters fir future generations (Ma, 2011).
Environmental benefits
The environmental benefits that accrue from adopting building technologies that are conscious on sustainability are that there is reduction in carbon emissions and greenhouse gases. Such sustainable technologies eliminate the use of fossil fuels and unclean fuel sources that pollute the environment causing increase in the depletion of ozone layer, chances of causing acidic rain increases, leads to respiratory diseases and other drawbacks such as environment modification (Ma, 2011). The rise of technologies such as wind energy and hydroelectric energy are used to power automotive and sustainably reducing carbon emissions.
Secondly, the use of green roofs lets the storm water be channeled in a manner that erosion is minimized and the contamination of such water is almost entirely eliminated. Tapping such water at the source can easily lead to recycling thus conserving water as a resource too.
The use of sustainability and green building practices reduces the amount t of water being produced. A reduction in waste is to the advantage of humans since most waste from the construction sector can lead to uneconomical practices and or side effects to humans (Håkansson, Höjer, Howlett, & Jain, 2013). This leads to conservation of natural resources and thus they can be easily restored to their original states.
The construction industry generally generates a lot of waste in developed countries and as a result the huge waste is a threat to the environment if it cannot be recycled. There is huge solid waste produced by demolition of structures. Most of this waste is non-biodegradable and affects that surface of the land where it is deposited. By creating lighter and recyclable construction materials, such problems are eliminated (Kibert, 2008).
Economic benefits
Sustainability and green building practices has the major economic impact in that operation costs are greatly reduced. The application of such technologies in water conservation and the utilization of houses that allow the use of natural light greatly reduce the consumption of electricity. This instead results in a less operating cost on a given structure. The money that could be used in such processes can then be directed to other purposes. The reduction in energy requirement for a given housing unit means that the power grid is not overburdened to supply huge amounts of power (Yates & Castro-Lacouture, 2016). The recycling of water reduces over abstraction from rivers and underground sources too.
The value of property is increased since house occupiers will always go in favor to housing with lower operating costs. As a result of this demand the value of a building constructed sustainably will be valued more than a similar house whose structure does not sustainably utilize resources (Glasson, Therivel, & Chadwick, 2006).
The uses of building technologies that are cautious of the sustainability of energy resources are filled with glass and provisions to utilize natural light from the sun. Working places that utilize natural light have been noted to increase the attendance rate of employees thus increasing productivity in such areas since humans have been noted to perform optimally under indoor conditions (Glasson, Therivel, & Chadwick, 2006) (Miller, 2011). Lighting that is natural and efficient ventilation reduces health care costs and ailments that result from indoor activities.
Social benefits
The use of sustainability and green building practices has the advantage that there is improved health among the people who work in such environments. Situations where little natural lighting is enabled or poor ventilation is common will lead to stuffy conditions where chemicals and dust accumulate in the air increasing the chances of causing respiratory tract diseases, allergies, headaches and nausea as such is the case with stuffy paint conditions (Ma, 2011).
There is increase in the performance of school children. The population of US school students who suffer poor environmental conditions is above 40% with this group generally performing poor due to poor reading and health conditions (Alam, Aslam, & Khaleel, 2012). In the contrary students who learn in better environments with natural lighting and ample fresh air perform greatly better than their peers.
Aspects of Sustainability and green building
Soil foundation and structure
This aspect tries to look into the effects of construction as with respect to soil disruption, soil erosion, the control of soil sedimentation and the risk of interfering with soil contamination. This takes an in-depth of the mitigation measures to soil lost through storm and wind during construction processes.
Hydraulics
This aspects take an in-depth look at the hydraulic aspects of a construction site factoring the outcome effects such as the reduction on the surface are responsible for infiltration of water and recharge of subsurface water reservoirs. The impact of construction leads to creation of hindrances that affect the flow of storm water which raises the need to channels as a means to reduce destructive effects from such water. The designing in this field aims at minimizing the impervious surface and providing means to reuse rain water and the reduction in contaminant s to the surface water.
Site planning and design
Site plan development aims to minimize the impact that arises from the establishment of s a structure on land. The result is a reduction of natural habitat and modification of the environment and the eradication of Greenfields. Construction on a piece of land affects natural resources through artificial modification of a natural habitat thus interfering with the biological aspects of that region. The native of a given region should be maintained as much as possible to maintain a region of biodiversity and space for habitat.
Infrastructure systems
This aspect takes an in-depth look at the relevance of construction technologies in reference to the generation and utilization of energy resource, solid waste and water waste management, water treatment and supply and mobility systems.
Developments in sustainability and green building practices
The conventional construction methods that have been used in the past have not been sensitive to the environment and as a result their impacts have contributed to adverse effects on our environment. Today the use of technology has been incorporated in the conventional methods thus improving efficiency and reducing the chances of coming up with structure that are not sensitive to the environment. The management practices applied today keeps the risks associated with environment to minimum. While the conventional construction projects were defined by physical needs and budgets, todays structures are complex in evaluation and thus they factor the environmental impact assessment. They require certification from bodies such as LEEDs to ensure they are compliant to green initiatives (Håkansson, Höjer, Howlett, & Jain, 2013).
Figure 1 an example of a green building showing the tapping of solar power for use within the facility; Notice the use of windows for natural lighting
The conventional practices involved establishing budgets based on previous establishments that had similarities. They were benchmarked preliminarily according to existing structures. Today, with the use of green building technologies cost benefit analysis is used to establish on the suitability of designs factoring the environmental impact and the benefits that may be accrued in the long run. The requirements in the building are weighed against parameters that influence the green initiative to strike a balance between resources and project priorities (Alam, Aslam, & Khaleel, 2012).
The traditional construction was based on arbitrary choice of site selection with little to no involvement of the stakeholders in that project. With the consideration of greener priorities, the projects of today involve stakeholders in appraising the project, the community too has a say in the project to factor in priorities that may affect them while the construction team undertakes the construction process.
The construction of traditional structures was less sensitive to the future costs of the given project, as such the architects involved only established construction costs with little variance, they laid little emphasis on the future of a building (Kulczyk & Council., 2013). The rise of green technologies ensures that architects factor options such as sustainability to long-term benefits that are expected to be accrued. As a result it will be noted that such methods are going to realize the benefits of sustainability despite incurring higher initial costs. Life cycle costing becomes necessary with greener priorities and through experience it has been proven as the most economical way for developers to go (Yates & Castro-Lacouture, 2016).
Then involvement of government in the environmental impacts of a project has been minimal in the past, today the government considers the use of zoning in all urban and rural developments to mitigate adverse impacts on the environment on a greater scale. This is due to the fact that poor structures can create an additive impact on the environment making it hard to mitigate such an occurrence. Today most governments have enforced zoning laws both in rural and urban areas (Ma, 2011).
The application of sustainability in construction was an additional cost in the traditional set up, owing to poor designs that never considered green priorities in design and construction leads to a rework of the whole project. As a result of reworking a project the costs increase as opposed to modern designs where such priorities are initially factored in the design process.
Figure 2 this figure shows he benefits of sustainablw buiding
Methodology
This paper utilizes a compilation of studies from LEEDs where several researches have been carried around the world. The paper gives a comprehensive outline from data gathered from the corporate sector, the private sector and from various universities across Europe, china and the United States of America. The real estate sector was majorly considered for the majority of data analysis since the major importance of sustainability is aimed at cost cutting too and increasing the return on investment. Quantitative and qualitative research methods have been used to substantiate data for analysis. The methodology used in this research establishes the parameters of buildings investment such as inventory costs to rent accrued, the comfort achieved to productivity achieved and many more.
The data will be evaluated herein with relevance to its place of collection and the recent findings given an upper hand to avoid duplication of facts. Additional resources that have the most recent data are considered in making deductions within some parameters throughout the research paper.
Data and analysis
The energy requirement has been increasing exponentially all over the world, the result is a search for numerous means to bring more energy into availability and cut the energy requirements. The global concern to cut energy consumption has been under research as a way to mitigate the climate change and the costs that arise due to excessive energy demand. The world today is estimated to double energy consumption by 2050 with the resources for energy becoming scarce and energy sources becoming more expensive (Yates & Castro-Lacouture, 2016). This is always a challenge to the global priorities as such since the same time the world aims to reduce their carbon emissions to a minimum. The world is projected to have a population of8.3 billion by the year 2030. The world is still expected to transform making the developing countries to have achieved high numbers above middle income. The international agency for energy estimates that the worlds demand for energy by 2030 can only be met by consuming 75% carbon dioxide related energy (Håkansson, Höjer, Howlett, & Jain, 2013). Malinda notes that in a scientific study that projects the results to lead to a global carbon dioxide increase by 3% could mean grave consequences for the survival of mankind (Miller, 2011).
The world today has over 20% of the world population without the access of electricity (Yates & Castro-Lacouture, 2016). This is an estimated of 1.3billion people majorly from under developed and developing countries. As a result of increasing global demand for energy, the world is tasked to come with clean and greener sources of energy. As a result, green building s which can generate and store electricity for future use are under intense research. The use of buildings with minimal energy requirement leads to efficient energy consumption leading to availability of more energy for use in the other sectors. The results of adopting green buildings can lead to cutting of energy demands and can have a dramatic impact toward the global reduction in use of unclean energy (Kulczyk & Council., 2013).
The council of the European Union aims to regulate the building sector requiring all newly constructed buildings from 2020 to have their main sources of energy from green sources. They aim to ensure that government buildings built after 2018 to have nearly zero energy requirements thus reducing the energy demand pressure from the national grid (Kibert, 2008). They aim to generate green energy that will serve over 20% of the total energy consumption being fed from green sources and requiring mandatory implementation and the certification of these goals (Ma, 2011).
China, the most populous country in the world leads to global annual increase in floor capacity constructed. As a result china leads in the rate of construction and so it also has lain plan to mitigate the conservation of our environment by adopting green construction and green energy. China aims to cut carbon dioxide production by 40%-45% by the year 2020 (Yates & Castro-Lacouture, 2016). China aims to reduce the production of energy by fossil fuels to attain a 15% generation of energy from non-fossil fuels. Chin aims to construct over 1 billion square meters of green buildings and making government building as priority in this plan (Kulczyk & Council., 2013). The Chinese government plans to work closely with developers to bring the green technologies to the market and at the same time encouraging the building of these buildings through providing financial aid to green building developers. A study conducted in china surveyed nearly 2500 students on the issue of green building establishing that; the report was that majority of students expressed concern about the environment with 81% appreciating the importance for working for a company that is environmentally aware (Yates & Castro-Lacouture, 2016). In support of this a stunning 79% bought into the idea that they could accept a job from an ecofriendly company a s opposed to the one that is not conscious of the environment.
The construction of green buildings results in a competitive edge leading to an increase in the return on investment. This has been witnessed and verified from new and existing buildings where a survey proved that among the investors interviewed in the United States that among new developers in green buildings a 19.2% percent increase in return on investment was recorded (Miller, 2011). The US green building council reported a reduction in operating costs of 13.6% for the newly constructed buildings and an 8.5% for the building s that existed with their designs being green practices conscious. The demand for green buildings was established to increase occupancy at 6.4% for the newly constructed buildings and 2.55 for the e existing buildings (Yates & Castro-Lacouture, 2016). The survey reported that the application of these technologies in the construction designs resulted in higher rents thus greatly reducing the payback p0eriod for the investors. A rent increase of 6.1% was recorded for new buildings and a 1% for the existing buildings.
The global corporate world has not been left behind too with a notable number adopting sustainability in their practices and global campaigns. More than 500 global companies today are campaigning for the reduction of carbon emissions and carbon disclosure to mitigate carbon release to our environment (Yates & Castro-Lacouture, 2016). Most of these companies have adopted such measures on a social responsibility scale globally creating awareness son the impacts of rerelease of carbon emission s and moreover they apply the reduction of carbon emissions in their manufacturing plants with some companies relying entirely on green energy.
The use of green construction is well demonstrated in the capabilities of buildings that are used in the corporate world on how the influence the productivity at the workplace. The productivity at the workplace is greatly influenced by the availability of ample natural lighting and the availability of fresh air (Håkansson, Höjer, Howlett, & Jain, 2013). These two attributes add to comfort and it is well understood that comfort at the workplace greatly influences the productivity of staff. Salaries contribute 85% of office building costs in business and as a result of this it can be noted that investing towards the productivity of the staff is a great concern toward the profitability of any company (Yates & Castro-Lacouture, 2016).
Figure 3 corporate cost estimate expenses on paying employees.
The impact of office design report establishes that productivity levels can be greatly improved to as a much as 25% by offering comfortable working space to the staff of any corporation. The benefits that are achieved by a building that is constructed using green technologies results in reduction of drafts, fresh air circulation and the even regulation of temperature reducing temperature swings during different times if the day (Kulczyk & Council., 2013). Such buildings achieve day lighting that comes from natural light and noise is highly controlled unlike buildings which do not have sustainable designs. A report at Genzyme headquarters in the United States indicated that the inclusion of environmental features in their staff buildings resulted in a reduction in sick time by 5% while majorities of 88% of employees were able to report improved wellbeing under those working conditions. The presence of natural environment within their working spaces resulted in 72% of the staff reporting high alertness throughout their work sessions and had increased productivity (Glasson, Therivel, & Chadwick, 2006).
The figure above shows the stock’s performance for a majority of global companies
Conclusion
With the increasing rate of urbanization a global increase in population, the world is at its highest to mitigate the artificial modification of our environment. The increase in population needs to be countered with the coming up of green technologies that can easily penetrate the building construction market. Research in the field of sustainability is crucial to come up with designs that are environmentally cautious and aim at reducing the overall energy consumption. The business world not only takes the responsibility to come with green buildings a s a social responsibility but a competitive edge in the construction industry as witnessed form reliable data. The corporate world too reaps big from the opportunities of higher productivity among employees thus steering companies to higher degrees of profitability. The owners of buildings should invest in state of the art green building technologies for innovative and effective designs geared towards sustainability.
Recommendations
The desire to achieve a world where sustainability is effectively applied, governments should come with measures that make it easy to adopt green buildings that are offered as incentives. Governments can come up with planning and design grants where organizations that wish to construct green building s are offered free consultancy services and designs so as to reduce the inventory that such organizations may shun to adopt sustainability in buildings. Regulatory bodies can do away with permit costs for projects that involve the construction of green buildings thus encouraging developers to consider sustainability as a better option. The city of Chicago green permit is such an incentive which has proved to work by increasing the number of sustainable green building constructed (Yates & Castro-Lacouture, 2016). The government can regulate the consumption of electronic and electric products to ensure that they meet a certain criteria such as the use of energy saver lighting bulbs and fluorescent tubes.
Communities can be encouraged to reduce their carbon footprint through the adoption of energy efficient practices. The government can serve as a role model through the adoption of green construction by incorporating green designs in their new projects. Moreover government can express their leadership role in adoption of greener building technologies by rebuilding their buildings that do not fit the codes for sustainability. Governments can increase the rate of transitioning to green building technologies by making the application of these technologies compulsory in technical learning institutions and offering training to practicing engineers in the construction industry on the green technologies.
References
Alam, P., Aslam, Z., & Khaleel, N. (2012). Environmental Impact Assesment for Dam Project. Saarbrücken: LAP LAMBERT Academic Publishing .
Glasson, J., Therivel, R., & Chadwick, A. (2006). Introduction to environmental impact assessment. London : Routledge publishers.
Håkansson, A., Höjer, M., Howlett, R. J., & Jain, L. C. (2013). Sustainability in energy and buildings : proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Sustainability in Energy and Buildings (SEB'12). Heidelberg ; New York: Springer publishers.
Kibert, C. J. (2008). Sustainable construction : green building design and delivery. Hoboken, N.J: John Wiley & Sons,.
Kulczyk, P., & Council., I. C. (2013). Building code basics, green : based on the 2012 International Green Construction Code. Clifton Park, N.Y.: : Delmar ; Washington, D.C. : ICC.
Ma, U. (2011). No waste : managing sustainability in construction. Farnham, Surrey, England: Burlington, VT : Gower.
Miller, M. (2011). Green construction : creating energy-efficient, low-impact buildings. Broomall, Pa: Mason Crest Publishers.
Yates, J. K., & Castro-Lacouture, D. (2016). Sustainability in engineering design and construction. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press.
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