Green building might not yet be as prevalent as we hope it would be. It’s not yet the rule instead of the exception, but it’s sure come a long way ever since it took off in the 1970s. We’re becoming more aware of our commitment to nature to build sustainable, efficient structures in the most environmentally sensitive way we can.
Earthship home merges organic curves and badass green tech. Image from Panacea-bocaf.org
That’s green building in a nutshell. And yet some misconceptions and myth about green building still persist, and they hinder people from making smart choices. Let’s tackle the first five here:
1. Green building is expensive. Newbies in green building might initially hesitate because of price concerns. But true green building is making do with your budget, not spending thousands just to rake in as many LEED points possible.
Many green materials are now priced reasonably, only slightly more expensive than their regular counterparts. And they have a high return of investment simply for the fact that they’re durable (you won’t have to keep replacing year after year) and high-performance (you save up on energy costs, etc.). They’re a lot safer, too, as they contain less toxic chemicals, which means less opportunity to get sick from them, so they’re really worth it.
By making smart, green choices that eventually pay for themselves in a few years time, you’re actually building better.
2. Building new is building green. Devout treehuggers maintain that the greenest building is the one that’s already standing. If you can remodel and retrofit an existing building, then that’s a lot better than building new. True, building from scratch has the advantage of getting it right down to the last detail the first time. Building new for instance let architects orient the building in relation to the sun for best efficiency, something that’s hard to do with existing buildings.
Still, when you take into account the energy demands and waste produced in new constructions, not to mention the ecosystem that would be disturbed, the greener thing to do is simply renovate and make the most of that building’s potential for greenness.
3. LEED-certified buildings are surely green. Not all. It just so happens that these so-called green buildings were built with sustainable materials using sustainable means, and that their efforts proved worthy of a LEED certification.
One of LEED’s major flaws in the past is that it fails to look beyond the green façade and check whether the building’s actual purpose or context is green at all. Hence, you’ve got a parking garage supporting cars and more cars, and a hotel in the middle of the desert defying drought, and homes costing millions of dollars to get built—all amazingly enough LEED-certified.
In the same vein, you don’t always have to be certified just to be green. If you’re sincere about your efforts in building sustainably, then you don’t need any certification-giving body to tell you you’ve done right. Ideally, LEED should be a guideline to building green, something you consult to keep you honest, disciplined, and on track. LEED is not the be all and end all.
4. Green building is Odd, Unsightly Structures
Aesthetics is always relative. The Earthships of the 1970s—those earth-and-tire-constructed eco-homes that operate sustainably and off-the-grid—might not be to everyone’s taste, unless you dig the mud hut look in the land of Tatooine in Star Wars. They’re beautiful too, of course.
But building green can also be incorporated in sleek, modern-looking, and very unassuming structures that are amazingly high-performance on the inside. It all depends on you.
5. Building Green is Fussy
Not necessarily. True, green building involves a lot of rethinking of the old ways we’ve been accustomed, and in that sense things can be a little fussy. What kind of floor to install? What about insulation? LED or CCFL? How many light fixtures. What kind of windows? How many windows? Etc, etc. It can be daunting, yes. You don’t necessarily have to obsess with every little detail, though of course you have to pay attention to the components and factors that do matter.
If we start dissolving the habits of the past and adapting to the new and improved changes, building green can be fun and rewarding.
