Green Building Goals

 Goals for green buildings include providing for  Some goals might be considered political in nature:
improved human health and comfort : Reduce dependence on foreign sources of fuel.
• Improve indoor air quality. • Increase national competitiveness.
• Improve indoor water quality. • Avoid depletion of nonrenewable fuels, such as
• Increase thermal comfort. oil, coal, and natural gas.
• Reduce noise pollution. • Reduce strain on electric power grids and risk of
• Improve morale. power outages.

 Some goals might be considered economic in  Some people broaden the goals of green buildings to
nature: include social or societal goals:
• Reduce energy costs. • Follow fair labor practices.
• Improve productivity. • Provide access for the disabled.
• Create green jobs. • Protect consumers.
• Increase marketing appeal. • Protect parklands.
• Improve public relations. • Preserve historic structures.
• Provide affordable housing.
Guidelines
• A number of green building guidelines have been developed by federal and state agencies, universities,
nongovernmental organizations, private companies, and even local municipalities.
• An example of a green guideline is the Residential Environmental Guidelines, developed by the Hugh L. Carey Battery
Park City Authority in New York City, written in 1999 and first published in 2000.

the guidelines address energy

• Some guidelines are limited to a specific area of green design. An example is the Sustainable Sites Initiative, developed
by the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA), the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center at The University
of Texas at Austin, and the United States Botanic Garden.
 • These guidelines more deeply explore environmentally sensitive sites, addressing the benefits of various ecosystem
services such as pollination, articulating a strong host of principles for green sites, and then laying out an extensive
set of best practices through the usual set of prerequisites and credits in a scoring system.

The 2030 Challenge

• A guideline that has garnered particular attention is the 2030 Challenge issued by Architecture 2030, an

environmental advocacy group established by the pioneering passive solar architect Edward Mazria in 2002.

• Endorsed by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), USGBC, ASHRAE, and the AIA, the 2030 Challenge calls for

all new buildings, developments, and major renovations to be designed to use less than half the fossil fuel energy

they would typically consume, and that an equal amount of existing building area be renovated annually to meet a

similar standard.

• Architecture 2030 is further advocating that the fossil fuel reduction standard be increased to 70% in 2015, to 80%

in 2020, and 90% in 2025, and that by 2030, all new buildings be carbon-neutral (using no fossil-fuel GHG-

emitting energy to build and operate).

The importance of continuity for the thermal boundary of buildings has been widely recognized
in recent years. Such layers are weakened when they are broken or are discontinuous. Most
conventional buildings have many such discontinuities.
Physical voids are not the only kind of disruptions a thermal boundary can suffer.
Discontinuities can also be created by thermal bridges, which are conductive materials that
penetrate or interrupt the thermal insulation layer in a wall, floor, or roof assembly. For
example, the wood or metal studs in a framed wall can act as thermal bridges, allowing heat to
move through the wall.
Walls, floors, and roofs having unprotected insulation only on one side are typically weak
layers of shelter. For example, the ceilings of basements or crawlspaces often have insulation
that is detached. Knee walls in attics are often insulated only on one side, with the insulation at
risk of damage or removal. Even if the insulation stays in place, air can move readily around
the insulation to the cold side of the interior wall finish, increasing heat loss in the space.
Weak layers are weak from the start. They are intrinsically weak. it define a no robust layer as
one that may be strong to start, but weakens over time.
Holistic Design

Another principle of green design is to plan holistically, to view the building and its environment as a whole and to examine all
components when designing from the outside in. Energy is used and wasted in many ways. Energy for heating, for example, is
required because of conductive and infiltration losses through the building envelope, distribution losses, and heating equipment
losses. In order to significantly reduce such energy losses, the building must be treated as a whole and all losses must be
minimized.
A holistically treated building is one in which many small improvements are made, all of which add up to a significant whole. A
12-inch- (305-mm) thick super-insulated wall cannot itself make a building energy efficient if the windows in it have poor thermal
resistance, if there is extensive air leakage through attic fixtures and elements, or if the heating system has an inefficient
distribution system. Too often, green buildings have a single highly visible green component, but still use too much energy because
insufficient attention was paid to the building as a whole.
Integrated Design
• An increasingly common practice in the green building field is referred to as integrated design, sometimes alternatively
referred to as integrative design. With integrated design, participants in a project, including the owner, architect, engineers,
consultants, tenants, and contractors, work together as a team from the early initial stages of a project. This collaborative
approach is intended to ensure that all stakeholders contribute to the greening of the building and that important viewpoints
and needs are considered early on in the design process. Integrated design has made an invaluable contribution to green
building design, most significantly by promoting the early evaluation of energy tradeoffs.

Affordability

Affordability has always played a central role in building design and construction. Buildings are one of the largest capital costs in
society. Affordable housing speaks to a society’s ability to provide shelter for the poor. Home ownership has become
synonymous with the realization of a dream. So significant are the capital costs for construction that these costs can rarely be
afforded out of pocket and so are usually borrowed and repaid over decades through that very particular type of loan, the
mortgage.
• An emerging view is that costs need to be analyzed on a life-cycle basis, taking into account the lower operating costs of a
green building over its anticipated life. The energy costs of a green building are typically lower than those of a traditionally
constructed building. Some green improvements, such as geothermal heating and cooling, have also been observed to reduce
maintenance costs relative to traditional approaches. A case has also been made that human productivity is higher in green
buildings due to improved indoor air quality and thermal and visual comfort, resulting in a cost benefit over time that offsets
higher capital costs.
Energy Modeling

• More advanced energy models, which can examine detailed tradeoffs of such systems as day lighting or energy controls, take
longer to prepare and interpret, but are still often worthwhile when compared to the future costs of energy use over a building’s
life. There is no longer the need for speculation in refining building designs to achieve energy efficiency. Energy modeling should
be regarded as essential for green building design.