Reasons why green building continues to build steam

March 11, 2015

Those still waiting for the bottom to fall out of the green building trend are likely to remain disappointed. Industry leaders nationwide have embraced sustainable building practices for their cost- and waste-reducing advantages, meaning that green building trends are to remain relevant headed into 2015. In fact, there are plenty of hints that architects and engineers alike will soon have to put some serious consideration into how to make their projects more sustainable if they'd like to remain competitive in the market. Thankfully, the rise of green building has brought with it new and exciting ways to design more efficiently.

Modern technology makes affordable green building a reality
There was a time when underdeveloped green techniques threatened to turn green projects into a financial loss, but for the most part those days are far behind us. A recent article from Carlson Studio Architecture noted that there are several green building strategies that can be incorporated into a design, such as the utilization of natural lighting and energy-efficient HVAC, with little to no impact on the cost of the project.

Other approaches to sustainable building will reduce the facility's operating costs, providing savings that offset any extra investments made to make the project as green as possible. For example, a recent article in Business Energy pointed out that implementing energy storage into building design allows its owners to cut back the use of their chillers.

By taking advantage of a medium like ice to store energy during the night when electricity consumption is at its least expensive, facilities can save themselves the cost of running their chillers during the day when the grid's peak load demand (and subsequently, electricity costs) are at their highest. The savings available to facilities that are able to shift the peak load of their own building are also in position to recover the costs of their energy storage investments.

Green material costs on the decline
Another trend providing momentum for green building this year is the dropping cost of green building materials and resources. A recent report from Navigant Research predicted that worldwide investments in green construction materials will increase to $254 billion by 2020 from $116 billion in 2013, said Environmental Leader. The research highlighted growing customer demand and cheaper green material costs as contributing factors to the industry's growth, indicating that the costs of green building are falling more and more beneath the threshold of the average builder.

If customer interest in green building continues to grow, then it seems logical that engineers and architects will eventually be faced with a tipping-point of consumer demand. Sooner or later it won't be a question of whether or not a company wants a green building, but a question of how green the building needs to be to meet the client's standards.

Helpful incentives available for green architects
The United States Department of Energy has long acted as an advocate for high standards for sustainable design, and the organization continues to lead the charge by encouraging green building through tax credits. Poplar Network listed the recently extended Section 179D and the Business Energy Investment Tax deduction as just two of many resources that lead building designers can take advantage of in terms of financial support when designing a green government owned building project.