THE BUSINESS
SENSE IN
GREENER DESIGN OF BUILDINGS
by Olufemi
Oyedele
Green
building (also known as green construction or sustainable building) refers to
both a structure and the building processes that are environmentally
responsible and resource efficient throughout a building’s life cycle: from
planning to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation,
rehabilitation, and demolition. This requires close cooperation of the
contractors, the architects, the engineers, the client and the end-users at all
project stages. The Green Building practice expands and complements the
conventional building design concerns of economy, utility, safety, durability,
and comfort. It is the application of modern building technology and building
process to save cost, improve building services, improve quality and ensure
user-friendly buildings.
Green
building also refers to saving resources to the maximum extent, including
energy saving, land saving, water saving, material saving, among others, during
the whole life cycle of the building, protecting the environment and reducing
pollution, providing people with healthy, comfortable and efficient use of
space, considering people’s way of life and being in harmony with nature. Green
building technology focuses on low energy consumption, high building
efficiency, economy, environmental protection, integration and optimisation.
There are rating organisations on green buildings like the Leadership in Energy
and Environmental Design (LEED). LEED is a set of rating systems for the
design, construction, operation, and maintenance of green buildings which was
developed by the US Green Building Council.
According to
Climate Group (2023), 40 percent of global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions come
from buildings and, if left unchecked, they are set to double by 2050. Although
new technologies are constantly being developed to complement current practices
in creating greener structures, the common objective of green buildings is to
reduce the overall impact of the built environment on human health and the
natural environment by: efficiently using energy, water, and other resources;
protecting occupants’ health and improving employee productivity; reducing
waste, pollution, and environmental degradation. Although some green building
programmes do not address the issue of retrofitting existing homes, others like
the Glasgow Housing Association (GHA) 2007 triple-glazed window retrofit do,
especially through public schemes for energy efficient refurbishment. Green
design practices can easily be applied to retrofit work as well as new
construction.
A 2009
report by the U.S. General Services Administration found 12
sustainably-designed buildings that cost less to operate and with excellent
energy performance. Overall, occupants were overall more satisfied with the
building than those in typical traditional buildings. These are eco-friendly
buildings. Buildings represent a large part of energy, water and materials
consumption. It is now part of the design for public buildings to have natural
lighting and plants around it. The human community alone contributes 33 percent
of overall global emissions. If including the impacts of manufacturing of
building materials, the global CO2 emissions were almost 40 percent. It is
warned that if new technologies in construction, especially clean energies, are
not adopted during this time of rapid growth, emissions could double by 2050,
according to the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP).
It is an
open secret that glass buildings, especially all-glass skyscrapers, contribute
significantly to climate change due to their energy inefficiency. While these
structures are aesthetically appealing and allow abundant natural light, they
also trap heat, necessitating increased use of air conditioning systems, which
contribute to higher carbon emissions. Experts advocate for design modifications
and potential restrictions on all-glass edifices to mitigate their detrimental
environmental impact. Buildings account for a large amount of land consumption.
According to the National Resources Inventory, approximately 107 million acres
(430,000 km2) of land in the United States are developed. Bioclimatic design
principles are able to reduce energy expenditure and by extension, carbon
emissions. Bioclimatic design is a method of building design that takes local
climate into account to create comfortable conditions within the structure.
Green
building brings together a vast array of practices, techniques, and skills to
reduce and ultimately eliminate the impacts of buildings on the environment and
human health. It is not just being practised as a vogue. While the practices or
technologies employed in green building are constantly evolving and may differ
from region to region, fundamental principles persist from which the method is
derived: siting and structure design efficiency, energy efficiency, water
efficiency, materials efficiency, indoor environmental quality enhancement,
operations and maintenance optimization and waste and toxics reduction. The
essence of green building is an optimisation of one or more of these
principles. Also, with the proper synergistic design, individual green building
technologies may work together to produce a greater cumulative effect.
Baay
Projects recently announced the launch of its Green City estate and Greenetro
claimed it is West Africa’s leading eco-friendly real estate developer. Due to
the great awareness of climate change and global warming caused by man’s
activities in his built environment, greener designs of buildings are now seen
as business strategies and it makes sense to go green.
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| Olufemi Adedamola Oyedele, MPhil. in Construction Management, Managing Director/CEO, Fame Oyster & Co. Nigeria, is an expert in real estate investment, a registered estate surveyor and valuer, and an experienced construction project manager. He can be reached on +2348137564200 (text only) or femoyede@gmail.com |
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