Building, Renovating, and Cleaning with
Sustainable Resources and Materials
Green building principles are changing how we construct and use our work-
places. Provided you take the ten following suggestions for green building,
you will have tools that are proven to lower overhead costs, improve produc-
tivity, and strengthen the bottom line.
Begin at the beginning with green design .......................................
Integrating green principles into a building’s design can save 40 percent in
costs and create 40 percent better performance than merely adding green
gizmos to a building put together the old way. To gain maximum advantage,
you must think green from the start. Here are just a few ways that better
design can deepen your green ways: long, narrow building shapes maximize
natural lighting and ventilation for workers; fixed elements, such as stairs,
mechanical systems, and restrooms at a building’s core create flexible and
open perimeters, which also enable more daylight to reach work areas; oper-
able windows and skylights allow natural ventilation in temperate weather;
and windows with low emission glazing minimize interior heat and glare.
The best way to execute green design is to hire the right project team mem-
bers, for example, from your architects and engineers to your contractors
and consultants — people who have expertise with green design tools and
technologies across the gamut. In all likelihood, these experts understand the
principals and characteristics of certification systems such as that established
by the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design (LEED), which has become a universal means of evaluating how green
a building is. Figure 11-1 shows the web site for LEED. (For more on LEED
certification, flip ahead to the section, “Getting LEED Certified” later in this
chapter.)
Pick the right spot ..............................................................................
To make your facility really green, you can’t build it on the habitat of an endan-
gered species or on farmland, parkland, or historic or prehistoric sites. Nor
can you build it within 100 feet of wetlands. In-fill properties such as parking
lots and vacant lots make for great places to set up sustainable developments,
as do redevelopment sites such as rail yards and remediated brown fields.
When you pick spots such as these, you do two things: First, you avoid adding
to urban sprawl, and second, you avoid risking damage to other environmen-
tally significant areas.
192 Part III: Going Green
