Time to focus more on green building

I do apologize at the very outset for beginning with the timeworn intro but it is a reality that by now the concept of green building has become the only hope for the whole of United States of America. Keep in mind that green building is an outcome of a design which focuses on increasing the efficiency of resource use — energy, water, and materials — while reducing building impacts on human health and the environment during the building’s lifecycle, through better siting, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and removal.

Can you posit now that it is wrong to count on this conception to refurbish both economy and job sector? Perhaps not!

However there is a quandary. It seems that this notion is creating dissensions even among its ardent admirers and that may become an obstacle before the advance. Take for instance the spate of arguments over green buildings at a Maine Indoor Air Quality Conference recently. The schism appeared owing to the obstinacy of Gifford, a mechanical systems specialist from New York City, who was in favor of introducing more rigorous analysis of energy consumption in buildings.

On the word of him, there is no doubt that green building is the order of the day and the time has come when everybody must become conscious of the environment. Nevertheless the problem starts with rating systems to determine this. The rating system that dominates is the United States Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, better known as LEED certification. As per him, LEED-certified buildings use more energy than comparable buildings and in support of this he brought to forefront the study report that Building Council commissioned to determine how much energy LEED-rated buildings actually used.

The results, announced in 2007, claimed LEED-certified buildings are 25 percent to 30 percent more efficient than non-LEED buildings. Terming the report shameful Gifford said during his presentation. “It was outrageous, 40 something pages, and they never mentioned how much energy is being used (in LEED-certified buildings). There’s nothing in the study to support the (25 to 30 percent energy savings) conclusion. They just made it up and nobody questioned it.”

Though persons like Naomi Mermin, Chairwoman of the Maine chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council, tried to refute him strongly, the confusion remains.