Building Greener Communities: Smarter Growth and Green Building
By Trip Pollard
INTRODUCTION
Our buildings have a tremendous environmental footprint. The construction and operation of the hundreds of millions of structures in the United States consume enormous amounts of energy, materials, and water. As a result, buildings are a primary factor driving greenhouse gas emissions, water and air pollution, excessive energy consumption, solid waste generation, and other critical problems.
This Article addresses the problem that, the costs of current building patterns and practices include not only damage to the environment, but also significant adverse economic, social, and health impacts. Therefore, there is an urgent need to rethink and remake our built environment.
There has been a surge of interest in green building, a broad term that includes a range of techniques, measures, and practices to increase the efficiency and reduce the environmental and health impacts of buildings. Green building projects--and policies to promote such projects--have increased rapidly. Additional policy measures are needed, however, to advance high-performance buildings.
A deeper concept of green building is needed as well. One approach is to raise the bar on the level of efficiency a green building should achieve. There are, for example, increasing efforts to move towards carbon-neutral buildings, as well as efforts to go even further and build structures that improve--rather than merely reduce harm to--the environment, such as structures that produce more energy than they consume. Another approach is to look beyond the walls of a building. Too many “green buildings” are green only if one focuses solely on the building itself. It is important to look at the broader community and regional scale in order to assess the full impact of a building. Among other things, it is necessary to consider how the building relates to transportation, land use, and community design. A truly green building must not only be resource-efficient; it also needs to be location- and transportation-efficient. The green building movement should be linked with efforts to promote smarter growth and more sustainable transportation, so that we can move from creating green structures to shaping green communities and regions.
This Article explores the impacts of current building practices, the need to fundamentally re-conceive the built environment, and the increase in green building projects and policies. It then examines green building through the lens of smart growth and sustainable transportation. It makes the case for a more comprehensive concept of green building and a shift in focus from creating more green buildings to green communities in order to drive improved policies and more sustainable development. Finally, it identifies some of the policy changes that can promote greener communities.
Our buildings have a tremendous environmental footprint. The construction and operation of the hundreds of millions of structures in the United States consume enormous amounts of energy, materials, and water. As a result, buildings are a primary factor driving greenhouse gas emissions, water and air pollution, excessive energy consumption, solid waste generation, and other critical problems.
This Article addresses the problem that, the costs of current building patterns and practices include not only damage to the environment, but also significant adverse economic, social, and health impacts. Therefore, there is an urgent need to rethink and remake our built environment.
There has been a surge of interest in green building, a broad term that includes a range of techniques, measures, and practices to increase the efficiency and reduce the environmental and health impacts of buildings. Green building projects--and policies to promote such projects--have increased rapidly. Additional policy measures are needed, however, to advance high-performance buildings.
A deeper concept of green building is needed as well. One approach is to raise the bar on the level of efficiency a green building should achieve. There are, for example, increasing efforts to move towards carbon-neutral buildings, as well as efforts to go even further and build structures that improve--rather than merely reduce harm to--the environment, such as structures that produce more energy than they consume. Another approach is to look beyond the walls of a building. Too many “green buildings” are green only if one focuses solely on the building itself. It is important to look at the broader community and regional scale in order to assess the full impact of a building. Among other things, it is necessary to consider how the building relates to transportation, land use, and community design. A truly green building must not only be resource-efficient; it also needs to be location- and transportation-efficient. The green building movement should be linked with efforts to promote smarter growth and more sustainable transportation, so that we can move from creating green structures to shaping green communities and regions.
This Article explores the impacts of current building practices, the need to fundamentally re-conceive the built environment, and the increase in green building projects and policies. It then examines green building through the lens of smart growth and sustainable transportation. It makes the case for a more comprehensive concept of green building and a shift in focus from creating more green buildings to green communities in order to drive improved policies and more sustainable development. Finally, it identifies some of the policy changes that can promote greener communities.
