Green Building: What does the future hold?
Times are tight, credit is hard to come by, and there is a significant surplus of built residential and commercial property sitting idle. Will the current economy hurt the green building movement or is the industry recession proof as a recent string of articles would like us to believe?
In a March 16th interview with Peter Morris of construction consultancy Davis Langdon, the folks over at Business Week attempted to look into the crystal ball and see what the future holds. The interview raised several interesting issues regarding the value of green building, particularly in light of the current economy and the fallacy of life-cycle cost analysis based on straight line models. As Morris said:
Trying to prove the value of green just on pure economics always seemed to me not necessarily dishonest, but it was like trying to catch people's pocketbooks as opposed to their morality.
Should we reconsider the manner in which we educate the public about green building and its "value"? I think the answer is clearly yes.
One of the biggest obstacles green building has faced has been proving its value in terms of economic benefits to the owner. Many of the early green buildings were unable to live up to their projected cost savings due either to flawed analysis of features cost saving potential or due to improper operation of the building after occupancy.
I propose the following methods to deal with this problem:
- Make enhanced commissioning and education of building occupants a prerequisite under green building certification schemes.
- Encourage post occupancy efficiency reviews to correct problems with both building systems and occupants habits.
- Emphasize that their are benefits to going green which cannot be measured in simple economic terms.
