The U.S Green Building Council’s (USGBC’s) 2021 World Green Building Trends report shows that building industry firms are looking to make the construction of net-zero/net-positive buildings a top priority.
“This reflects the recognition that only by making the built environment carbon-neutral can the goal to minimize the impacts of climate change be achieved,” according to a USGBC news release. More than 1,200 industry professionals, including engineers, architects/designers, contractors, owners, developers, inventors, and consultants around the world responded to the survey.
The findings also demonstrate a compelling business case for building green. The average reduction in operating costs for the first 12 months in a new green building is 10.5%, and five-year cost savings are 16.9%, according to survey results.
Other findings include:
· The pandemic impacted the green building sector with many respondents saying that messaging about increasing filtered air exchange in buildings directly influenced their choice of HVAC system, and social distancing standards affected building design.
· More than half of those that work on a majority of green projects plan to incorporate resilience strategies into their projects in the next five years.
· Most respondents (82%) are at least aware of the concept of embodied carbon – emissions from manufacture, transportation, installation, maintenance, and disposal of building materials – with contractors and owners less familiar than architects and engineers. The majority (79%) of those building green use at least one metric to track green building performance, an increase of five points since 2018.
· About half of respondents engage in green renovation/retrofit projects, with most investors engaged in this work.
Related Stories
| Aug 20, 2013
L.A. City Council approves plan for new $1 billion Watts development
Los Angeles city officials have voted to revitalize a notorious Watts housing project with shops, town homes, and green spaces.
| Aug 19, 2013
Baltimore City Council committee OKs taxpayer assistance for $1.8 billion Harbor Point mixed-use project
A Baltimore City Council committee approved a plan to give millions in taxpayer assistance to the $1.8 billion Harbor Point development.
| Aug 19, 2013
Philadelphia to enforce building energy benchmarking in October
The City of Philadelphia has begun to send out compliance notices regarding its Building Energy Benchmarking Law.
| Aug 19, 2013
Eliminating Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac part of Obama’s housing proposal
President Barack Obama this month outlined a series of policies he said would continue to boost the housing market, including a long-ignored legislative proposal that would allow more Americans to refinance at current low mortgage rates.
| Aug 19, 2013
HUD, New York City collaborate on research center to boost storm resilience
The U.S. Housing and Urban Development Department and New York City will collaborate on a project to create a new research institute and a city-federal park at Jamaica Bay, Queens.
| Aug 16, 2013
Dept. of Homeland Security offers tool to analyze building risk and resilience
The Integrated Rapid Visual Screening tool is designed to determine initial or relative risk and resilience for buildings based on visual inspection only.
| Aug 8, 2013
AAMA releases specification for non-residential fenestration BIM
The American Architectural Manufacturers Association (AAMA) released AAMA 912-13, Voluntary Specification for Non-Residential Fenestration Building Information Modeling (BIM).
| Aug 8, 2013
New green property index could boost REIT investment in more sustainable properties
A project by the National Association of Real Estate Investment Trusts (NAREIT), the FTSE Group, and the U.S. Green Building Council to jointly develop a Green Property Index could help REITs attract some of the growing pool of socially responsible investment money slated for green investments.
| Aug 8, 2013
Boston reaching for solutions to threat of rising sea levels on waterfront development
While Boston officials consider whether to enact new building codes to resist flooding stemming from climate change-induced rising sea levels, developers are already boosting resiliency on new projects.
| Aug 8, 2013
EPA’s National Stormwater Calculator aids developers
The Environmental Protection Agency has released an application called the National Stormwater Calculator that uses soil conditions and rainfall records to estimate annual rainfall and runoff for any location in the U.S.