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There are various ways to define it
Green Building is a collection of advanced building
principles and methods that goes beyond all existing building codes
in creating a better interior environment while reducing the impact on the
planet. The primary motivations come from concerns about energy
efficiency, excessive consumption of raw materials, the quantity of
construction debris in landfills and health concerns.
Generally, we refer to a building as being "Green" if at
least some environmental concerns are addressed in its design and
construction and the result is better than building codes would have
otherwise required. While this is a fair definition, it still leaves
an enormous range of possibilities: anywhere from minor changes from
standard practice to radically different approaches to building.
Within all these approaches, there is a common thread of designing the
building to take advantage of its environment, rather than just fight
it. This is called climate adapted design. Buildings that follow green principles are adapted to their environment and take
advantage of sun, wind, and shading. This differs dramatically from
the normal approach of a fixed design placed randomly on the
landscape. In addition, green building places a new emphasis on
comfort and function: a home is much more than how many square feet and the
number of bedrooms and bathrooms.
The underlying principles of making a better environment in the house and
reducing the impact on the planet don't necessarily come as a package.
It is possible to build a very lovely, but large home whose impact on the
planet, while less than if it weren't green, is still more than most
houses. Likewise, it is possible to build a very tiny Spartan home
that is little or no impact on the planet, but not especially lovely to live
in. The idea of the sensible house is to find the right compromise.
The problem with measuring the impact on the planet is that it is
multiplied by 6 billion (and growing), so it raises the question of what is
reasonable, and what is our fair share?
Sustainability
Environmentalism, that of protecting our "natural capital", is a
concern for future generations even more than it is for ourselves.
We'd like our grandchildren and their grandchildren to have at least as good
a life as we do. The idea of sustainable use, addresses this:
it is simply to not use resources to the point that we will run out of them
some day. The United Nations official definition states it more
eloquently as:
"meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs".
This idea in spite of having widespread use and being simple in concept,
in reality figuring out if you're doing something sustainably isn't easy.
Sounds simple, but when you get down to details sustainability can be a
vague concept. Consider petroleum: everyone agrees we will run
out someday, but whether its 40 years or 4000 years is debated. To
be sustainable we have to either assume that future generations will find
a way to avoid using it, or we can start doing it now. Looking five
or ten generations later may not be good enough. What if humanity
lasts another five or ten thousand years?
Alternatively look at wood products, which are certainly a renewable
resource. However they are only renewable if we are good stewards
and cut only as much as grows, protect the soils the forests grow in and
leave a safety margin for damage due fire, insects etc.
We also must never forget to look at the impact on the entire
planet. Sustainable means not just for our region, but from all the
places we are getting materials and on all the places that have downstream
or downwind effects.
Here we run into another set of cultural problems (and maybe one of
human nature as well): how much risk are we willing to take? How
optimistic are we about future generations ability to solve problems we
can solve? How optimistic are we about the ability of technology to
solve problems? How much are we willing to that the "high
road" instead of the "quick and easy". The American
culture has historically been one of optimism and instant
gratification. No matter where you stand, its likely that we'll be
arguing about what is sustainable for a long time.
To more accurately define Green Building, we need to say that our
environmental impact is sustainable, or at least that a reasonable attempt
has been made to move toward sustainability.
Approaches
In many ways Green Building is really a continuum of choices, with most
designer and builders working within a set of overlapping areas. In
practice, Green Building is really a confluence of a related set of
movements: solar homes, natural building, healthy homes, forest preservation
and recycling, and energy efficiency. Practitioners may focus more on
natural building, or lean toward modernist high tech; they may be more
interested in environmental concerns or only mildly interested.
The Natural building movement probably has the largest following and has
gotten the most press, although these projects tend to be in rural areas,
far from mainstream development. More recently, mainstream developers
are building green homes that look similar to every other new home. In
general, the mainstream houses aren't as green as the natural building ones,
but it seems likely the gap will close in short order.
In addition there is a movement toward adaptable houses-- ones that are
easy to remodel in order to accommodate changing technology, changing
technology and new owners.
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