Over the recent past, the awareness of sustainable construction has grown tremendously. Green building certification has therefore become an essential appraisal in the construction business development. While these certifications afford an assurance that facilities are working successfully with an insignificant quantity of influence on the environment, they provide an extensive amount of options to engineers, developers, and occupants. Here, you will find information on the main green building certifications, the advantages, and ways engineers could incorporate them into their work.
Information about Green Building Certifications
Green building certifications can be defined as the processes (systems) that check out the impact of building on the environment. These certifications are earned according to a set of rules that tries to measure different facets of the building’s physical makeup, outlook use, and upkeep. The objective is to minimize the adverse environmental footprint of buildings, their energy, water, waste, and emissions consumption.
Some of the most widely recognized green building certifications include:
LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design): LEED is one of the most commonly used green building certification programs in the world, which is managed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC). It evaluates structures in several factors whereby some of them are energy, water, material and resources, IAQ, and creativity.
BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method): BREEAM is another internationally acclaimed green building certification system developed in the United Kingdom that benchmarks the buildings based on measures like energy, health & well-being, material, management, pollution, transport, waste, water & land use.
WELL Building Standard: Similar to LEED and BREEAM, WELL is another certification tool, but the primary differences lie in the focus on the occupants’ health. It decides concerning items such as air, water, food, light, exercise/health, warmth/coolness and thought.
Green Globes: Similar to LEED, Green Globes is a certification system used mostly in North America, however, the system’s approach to implementing green building certification is much more adaptable and project team centered where they can emphasize prerequisites essential to the projects being developed.
EDGE (Excellence in Design for Greater Efficiencies): Step-by-step global experience Innovative, efficient, and cost-effective. EDGE is a green building certification tool developed by the International Finance Corporation (IFC) that aims to improve resource efficiency in buildings most notably in emerging markets. Specifically, it emphasized energy conservation with temperate and water usage, as well as the selection of materials.
Advantages of Green Buildings and Construction Credits
1. Environmental Benefits:
EPA green building certificates make it possible to decrease a building’s negative influence on the natural environment. Through the efficient use of resources, certified buildings remain environmentally friendly since they first use less energy, water, and recycle, and emit few pollutants. This assists in the conservation of environmental resources and in lowering the emission of greenhouse gases particularly by the building industry.
2. Economic Advantages:
While getting a green building certification it has been realized that there are initial costs that are incurred and these are usually recovered in the long run. It is well known that certification usually leads to lower operational costs since energy and water use are cut down. Also, a green building normally has eligibility for incentives like tax credits, rebates, or grants among others. Also, it can be observed that certified buildings may have higher property value due to the ability to charge higher rent prices or sales prices.
3. Health and Well-Being:
The practices in green buildings focus on the users of the building as they have demonstrated an understanding of the impacts they have on the occupants’ health. Some certifications, such as WELL, take into account aspects such as air quality, and natural light, on which the indoor environment has a positive impact. There is confirmation that occupants of green buildings are more comfortable and hence happier and more productive than those in other buildings.
4. Marketability and Competitive Advantage:
Being able to demonstrate environmental performance for a development project, Green building certifications could provide that edge on a project and thus improve chances of attracting tenets, investors, and buyers. Sustainability has become important for companies and being certified means the company cares about the environment.
5. Regulatory Compliance and Risk Mitigation:
With governments across the globe putting more strict measures on the use of energy-efficient and environmentally friendly materials in construction, green building certifications equally guarantee current and future compliances. This helps to avoid fines and may adapt constructions to serve future standards if needed.
Green Building Certifications and How Engineers Can Incorporate it into Their Projects
1. Early Integration:
The ones that make sustainability work are those projects that integrate sustainability into them right from conception. Sustainability ideals should be incorporated into the project by architects, engineers, developers, and every stakeholder right from the initiation of the project. Cooperation at this stage ensures that potential ways of reducing energy and water consumption, as well as material usage, are found and implemented that otherwise can be hardly achieved in the future.
2. Continuous Education and Certification:
Engineers must know the integration of green building standards and certification. Some certification programs are designed as education and qualification programs for certain kinds of specialists, e.g., the LEED AP credential. These certifications not only expand the engineer’s knowledge and experience but also bring more weight to the specialization in sustainability.
3. Leverage Technology:
Current-day technologies in modeling and software would assist the engineer in ascertaining the environmental performance of a design. EnergyPlus, eQuest, and IES VE are mostly used by engineers to simulate energy and electric power consumption, daylighting, and thermal comfort which are green building certification’s important features.
4. Focus on Lifecycle Costs:
The concept of life-cycle costs is one of the foremost guidelines of sustainable construction. The engineers should always consider the solution that will save the most money in the long term, though may cost more initially. This approach corresponds well with most of the green building certifications, which are intended to incorporate value sustainability over the life cycle.
5. Collaborate with a Certified Green Building Consultant:
In new construction projects intending to obtain a particular certification, the service of a consultant who is familiar with the certification is desirable. These professionals can help the project team with certification issues, to ensure the fulfillment of all the requirements necessary for the certification of the project.
6. Advocate for Sustainability:
This is something that should be encouraged among the engineers so that they can embrace their responsibility of implementing sustainable practices among the organizations and with the clients. Having listed the different green building certifications and provided information on costs as well as the improved efficiency of buildings, engineers can influence the industry on the importance of green building certifications.
Green building certifications are one of the most effective tools available to engineers who wish to practice sustainability. From the awareness of the various certification systems, the opportunities involved, and procedures of certification, engineers have the role of attending to green construction agendas. The trend towards green building is only going to increase, making green building certification even more important in the future; giving engineers the chance to shape tomorrow’s environment positively.