Energy Star tax credits
The use of the term “Green” as it applies to buildings has been increasing month after month, year after year. The same applies to so-called “sustainable”. But by what measure is any BUILDING green or sustainable?
Green and sustainable have been relatively underdeveloped concepts until the last 10 years. In fact, there are recent standards to apply to building design and performance. LEED certification is a good standard that I support. Energy Star status for buildings is another standard that I like.
There is an amazing explosion of marketing of the so called green building components. Its a hot and popular concept. There are marketing campaigns by manufacturers proclaiming grand visions of their green product making a greener world. Some border on false. Many are totally absent of verification. Then again, some big names are cleaning up their “environmental footprint” – and displaying a conscientious approach to business. But a great number of smaller mfrs have yet to prove their products are really green and produced with “green” practices. They could be more honest in their marketing too.
I digress. The point is that uncertainty as to the meaning of the words green and sustainable , mostly in the press, can obscure the discussion.
The end objective would be a society built upon a sustainable economy and technology. The very definition of sustainable implies, to me, that humans can live comfortably on this planet for many millions of years to come. With that in mind, anything is possible. The concept of “Green” building design happens to be one of those possibilities.
As it turns out, Michael Ivanovich, in this blog article at Consulting Engineers magazine entitled, Sustainable semantics summarizes this subject fairly well.
