Green Building Basics
Healthy and high-performance buildings are designed and built with a more thoughtful, inclusive, holistic and systems-based approach, taking long term environmental and human impacts into consideration.
Green Building Basics
Healthy and high-performance buildings are designed and built with a more thoughtful, inclusive, holistic and systems-based approach, taking long term environmental and human impacts into consideration.
The Basics: What is Green Building?
Green buildings – also known as healthy and high-performance buildings – provide a response to traditional building methods that contribute to poor occupant health, natural resource depletion, unnecessary maintenance and operational costs, and numerous negative environmental impacts. In general, healthy and high-performance buildings are designed and built with a more thoughtful, inclusive, holistic and systems-based approach, taking long term environmental and human impacts into consideration.
Consider these facts:
Americans spend 90% of their time indoors, where air quality can be up to five times worse than outdoors.
Meanwhile, buildings in the U.S. account for approximately:
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40% of our energy use
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40% of our greenhouse gas emissions
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65% of our waste output
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12% of our water use
Maintaining the status quo of the built environment is not sustainable – it simply cannot continue at this rate into the future.
Green, healthy, high performing buildings offer a solution to this challenge and have been shown to:
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Reduce energy use by up to 50%
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Reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 33%
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Recuse solid waste by up to 70%, and
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Reduce water use by 40%
All this while also lowering maintenance costs by over 10% and significantly increasing occupant satisfaction!
Why Build Green?
It’s not every day that an opportunity with a triple bottom line benefit presents itself.
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People: Green buildings provide benefits to the occupants of a space
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Profit: Green buildings provide benefits to the economy
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Planet: Green buildings provide benefits to the environment
Occupant Benefits
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Improved occupant performance, comfort, and health
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Improved quality of life
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Flexible spaces
Economic Benefits
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Competitive market advantage
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Increased business revenue
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Reduced operating costs
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Increased resale and rent values
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Optimized life-cycle performance
Environmental Benefits
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Biodiversity and protected ecosystems
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Improved air and water quality
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Reduced waste stream
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Conserved and restored natural resources
With GBA, It's Easy Being Green
At Green Building Alliance, we inspire the creation of healthy and high performing buildings throughout the entire region. We’re here specifically to...
Provide Resources
Not sure where to start? Check out GBA’s Resource Directory to learn the basics, as well as various ways to incorporate green practices into your space.
Connect the Dots
GBA has more than 1,100 individual and corporate members who are contractors, architects, engineers, commissioning agents, designers, landscape architects, and LEED-accredited professionals who can help YOU create your own healthy and high performing space. Attend one of GBA’s many events, where you can be connected with the right people to guide you through this process. Check out GBA’s events calendar to get involved.
GBA can also help service providers and green building professionals connect to potential clients and customers.
Educate
GBA hosts over 100 events per year, all focused on providing education and networking for its friends and members. From LEED to Living Building Challenge, from Passive House to net-zero energy, from building tours to workshops… GBA will school you on anything and everything related to sustainability and the built environment. Check out the education section for more details.