Green Building – Nirvana or Fool’s Gold?
When you mention the phrase ‘green building’ you tend to get a wide range of opinion from the cynics who think its one step on from hessian underpants and open-toed sandals to the evangelists who claim it will solve the world’s problems and the challenges of the construction and property industry.
In truth, “going green” will not be answer to either industries current difficulties. Yet there is no doubt that by turning their attention to ways in which energy can be saved and carbon emissions reduced, the construction and property worlds will undergo a seismic shift in their thinking and practices.
It is a sobering thought that 40% of the buildings that we will be using by 2050 have not yet been created.. Given that almost half our greenhouse emissions come from the built environment, the opportunity for property and construction companies to have a positive impact on future climate change is enormous.
Three is the magic number
The good news is that change is already beginning to happen driven by three factors: regulatory legislation; social will (the groundswell of interest among buyers and tenants); and the opportunity to reduce costs.
Taking regulatory legislation first – The Government has introduced a raft of rules over recent years aimed first at encouraging, and increasingly forcing, companies to reduce their carbon emissions. This carrot and stick stream of law-making shows no sign of abating. From BREEAM ratings to the Carbon Reduction Commitment, the Government has left us in no doubt that ignoring environmental issues in our built world is not an option.
Next year’s Better Building Act will allow social housing funding decisions to focus on more long term returns. As this directly impacts the funding available to housing associations, it will allow them to integrate cleantech and low carbon solutions that currently only provide long-term paybacks.
Moreover, the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target 2008-11 (CERT), which is using a levy on energy companies to promote and subsidise low carbon technologies, such as half-price insulation, is generating real uptake.
Social swell
The groundswell of interest in solving the low carbon conundrum in the residential and commercial markets is increasing, whether it is the TV phenomenon Grand Designs, dedicated publications from WH Smith or kitchen catalogues from Homebase, sustainable living is everywhere the consumer looks. It is hard to remain totally unaffected.
Cash is king
But perhaps the most significant factor in driving forward the sustainability agenda is money. As the credit crunch continues to bite, all parties in the property and construction have a genuine interest in how to reduce costs and become more energy efficient…
Developers are now seeing evidence that the upfront investment in green building provides a payback as their assets become more desirable and attract higher revenues.
Communicating the benefits
As such, green building is neither nirvana nor fool’s gold but is something entirely different.
A low-carbon, energy efficient approach is becoming embedded in the way governments, companies and people think, so the only question is about the pace of change. In many ways this is similar to the Internet revolution 10 years ago. At first, there was eBusiness – the Internet somehow made things different. Very quickly it reverted to plain old business as the majority of businesses incorporated the technology.
Green building is here and here to stay. The biggest challenge is communicating the benefits.
