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 16, 2012
New York’s Barclays Center project accused of ignoring noise, pollution regulations
Construction crews racing to finish the Brooklyn Barclays Center are ignoring strict regulations to reduce noise and pollution, a new report by critics has found.
| Aug 16, 2012
Harness saves life of worker cleaning Washington state Capitol
Fall-protection equipment helped save the life of a worker who was cleaning the Washington state Capitol building in Olympia, after the platform he was using gave way.
| Aug 16, 2012
CSI webinar on August 21 focuses on electronic energy control
The Construction Specifications Institute (CSI) is sponsoring a free webinar on August 21 at 2:00 p.m. (EDT) on electronic energy control.
| Aug 16, 2012
Public sector pushes sustainable building forward
Not usually noted for its innovation, the public sector has done the most to advance sustainable building, according to a recent panel of green building professionals.
| Aug 16, 2012
Canada’s first net-positive building under construction in Milton, Ontario
The GreenLife Business Centre in Milton, Ontario near Toronto is set to become the first net-positive energy building in Canada.
| Aug 9, 2012
St. Paul cannot adopt overly restrictive egress windows policy, court rules
The Minnesota state Court of Appeals rejected St. Paul's attempt to adopt a policy on egress windows that was stricter than state law.
| Aug 9, 2012
Fire chief questions building code after St. Louis apartment building fire
A blaze that destroyed a 197-unit apartment building in St. Louis, Mo., displacing 250 residents, led the city’s fire chief to question the materials used in the construction of the four-story building.
| Aug 9, 2012
Ramps have strict criteria for ADA compliance
It is important for businesses to understand that an existing ramp at a building entrance may not mean that barrier removal obligations under the Americans with Disabilities Act have been met.
| Aug 9, 2012
ClickSafety, AGC provide online training program for construction professionals
Construction professionals will be able to take a wide range of mandatory and optional safety training programs online through a new collaboration between the Associated General Contractors of America and ClickSafety.
| Aug 9, 2012
Tornado-ravaged Greensburg, Kansas’s new green buildings save $200K a year
The town of Greensburg, Kan., virtually destroyed by a tornado in 2007, decided to rebuild 13 public buildings according to green standards.