The Need for Local Governments to Embrace the Green Building Program

The Need for Local Governments to Embrace the Green Building Program
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Table of Contents
Transmittal Letter……………………………………………………..……….3
Abstract………………………………………………………………………...4
Introduction………………………………………………………….………...5
Meaning of the Concept of Green Building…………………………….………6
Long-term Benefits of Green Building………………………………..…………7
Why should Local Governments go Green?………………………….………….8
The Green Umbrella………………………………………………………….…..10
Benefits of Green Building to Local Governments……………………………….11
Implementing Green Building Programs……………………………………….….14
Strategies for Local Governments to encourage Green Building………………….14
Conclusion………………………………………………………………………….15
References…………………………………………………………………………..17
Glossary……………………………………………………………………………..19
Transmittal Letter
Green building practices have been in existence for the last 5 decades. It is the fear of the unknown and lack of information that has hindered its full absorption and take -off. In the draft proposal we have allayed fears about all these and highlighted the benefits of embracing green building. It is our sincere submission that all local government should embrace the use of green building strategies, guidelines and principles. The ever changing environment, potential home owner’s preferences and the need for stylish design that guarantees comfort call for the green building coding system.
Abstract
The building industry is an ever changing industry partly because of the ever changing tastes and preferences of the home owners and climate conditions. It is important for local leaders to be abreast with the changing culture, building designs, and people’s expectations.
Building codes should be customized to suit the different individual needs locally and also meet international standards. The Green building initiatives attempt to incorporate all the combinations of design, authenticity, safety, and environmental concerns in the structuring of houses. Local governments should encourage and uphold the use of green building practices as they are efficient and effective in tackling the rising issues of home owning.
It is true that, green building practices use premium materials that come at a cost, but a closer cost benefit analysis reveals that the net result is positive compared to the conventional ways of building. Conventional houses have been associated with respiratory diseases and other ailments which are caused by lack of good ventilation systems. There is a positive correlation between respiratory diseases and bad house structures, which has been witnessed by homeowners of conventional houses.
Respiratory diseases lower the workforce productivity and also results in absenteeism at the work place. In the end the saving that is presumed to be associated with conventional buildings is more than offset by the medical bills incurred in taking care of the ailments associated with them. More so this results in a higher dependence ratio as more people become incapacitated and only depends on government grants.
The green building programs also bring out the interconnected project and practices which can be achieved through the same coordination. These save time and resources as no duplication of duties is witnessed. These considerations make green building an attractive venture for local governments.
Introduction
Building codes outlines building criteria that safeguard public health, safety and general welfare as they cater for the needs of construction and the potential occupants of the building. The building industry has many regulations that are very critical in the success of any real estate undertaking. These comprises but not limited to the specific requirements of building materials, fire protection, structural design, heating and cooling, lighting and ventilation, sanitary facilities, and energy conservation. There is no agreed upon building code enforced by the federal government. There is room for each independent local government to formulate from scratch its building codes or revise, customize and update the already existing codes from other areas. Different areas of the country have different building codes applied by their respective local governments. More so, the different climatic conditions, the different seasons of the year dictates the different codes used in construction like for example the technique used to build a house in the winter would be different to that used in the summer. In the United States, most building codes are regulated at the local level. Nevertheless, there are a few municipalities mostly from bigger cities that write and revise their own codes. There also exist a good number of states who have mandatory statewide building codes.
As it is common knowledge, building a home is a delicate and complicated process and by extension building codes are often long and complicated. There have been measures put in place to prevent each local government from formulating its own complicated code from scratch by empowering several major code organizations to draft codes that local builders adopt. Code writing is a sensitive, interactive and dynamic process that involves constant consultation between the public and private sector of the building and construction industry (Coplin, 2000). These consultations that entail the federal government, local government, state and individuals who take part in code writing and revision have to comprehensively cater for the views of labor, management, manufacturers and trade unions, while their contributions enrich technical expertise in the process. It should be noted that building codes do not deal with issues such as the quality of workmanship and the raw materials used in building. The errors committed during building process through human negligence should be handled at the site level away from the coding process.
Meaning of the Concept of Green Building
Green building refers to the use of Green building methods and materials in a building project. Green building is guided by the following principles: building for long term, build for the health and safety of families and lastly building for the planet. Embracing a Green building program is an innovative and effective way geared towards improving the local quality of life and also helps create more efficient city halls. In terms of cost, Green building methods and material range in prices, some of them cost no more or even less than the conventional methods. It should be pointed out that, the cost and benefit of Green building should be viewed from the long term perspective and the positive externalities achieved through the use of the program.
Normally, some of the materials recommended often cost more compared to the conventional ones but in the long run when aspects such as a healthy environment, safety and social-economic factors are considered the program merits to be used. Green building methods are the techniques, products, principles and technologies that entail the following: producing more long lasting homes that require less and less maintenances, use energy sparingly, improve indoor air quality, lighting and ventilation, and last but not least conserve the scarce natural resources. The benefits of the Green building project are realized by the house owner, the general environment and the greater planet. For the owner, there is guarantee for safe living conditions, low maintenances and for the environment there is guarantee of wise use of resources, less environmental pollution and wise use of energy. To the home owner, Green methods produce high quality homes and financial savings in the long run.
Long Term Benefits of Green Building
Some of the long run benefits enjoyed by the house owners include:
Less maintenance and high durability-Green building usually use high premium building material that are more durable and also employs building practices that more often exceeds the building code requirements.
High resale value- Green building methods usual enhances a given home overall performance and greatly reduce maintenance and constant replacement cost. This keeps the house in an almost intact condition for a long time and hence fetches a higher resale price as compared to conventional houses.
Increased comfort- it is a proven fact that Green homes are inherently comfortable thanks to the premium and health materials and methods used in the construction. The designs are smart, tight, strong and appealing both in authenticity and reliability.
Healthier living- the material used, technique and methods applied in the construction of Green houses, guarantee proper garbage disposal, clean environment and organic sewer recycling process (Hirokwa, 2012). These practices greatly reduce or entirely eliminate any form of indoor pollution.
Why should local government go Green?
For any local government with foresight, it would be advisable to fully embrace and use Green methods in the development of building codes. These methods and programs are aligned to the millennium goals of striving to reduce the levels of global warming and climate change. This would go a long way in reducing or eliminating the human negligence in air and land and water pollutions that are a result of poor policy formulation and implementation process. Healthily environment and sturdy buildings would play a major role in ensuring the better and safer housing condition for the home users against natural calamities such as floods and storms.
Well customized buildings toward the condition of a given geographical area is important as this will enable the house to sustain any form of calamity associated with area it is built in. it is important for the local government to liaise with the local expertise, stakeholders and potential home owners to come up with the unique formula for the respective housing requirements that are durable, comfortable, safe and cost effective in the long run. The best recipe for such ambitious but doable initiatives is the use of Green building codes in the development of building codes. It is not a lie that the developments of such codes are costly initially especially if doing from scratch to customize for a particular region or condition but in the long run it is worth the trouble. The local governments are encouraged to embrace the use of building codes as it is the best practice that has the future requirements both as an individual level and the good of the planet at large. Threats of global warming that are predicted to change the way people would live have to mitigated now so as we would not be caught on the wrong footing.
The conventional building practices have proven to be costly both on the environment impacts and also on the health and wellbeing of home owners. It has been observed that conventional building construction use, demolish and together with the manufacturing of construction materials have a negative impact on the local, regional and global environment. In the United State alone, conventional building accounts for; 65% energy consumption, 30% of greenhouse gas emissions, 30% of raw material use, 30% of landfill waste and 12% of portable water consumption (Hirokwa, 2012). In the short run f quantify the cost of conventional building method in the social context and the wellbeing of human being the net results is negative. So for the critical and proactive thinkers about tomorrow, we have to put in place mechanism that will shield us from the foreseen tomorrow’s problems that are inherent in the conventional building programs. In addition to that, reliable researches have shown that there is a positive correlation between poor indoor air quality and respiratory health problems that consequently results into reduced productivity and acute job absentees. Any local government that is health conscious about it citizens would not hesitate but grab these opportunity to safeguard its tax payers from the burden of losing a lot through medical care. A health electoral, would be more productive at the work place and would also alleviate the dependence ratio as they can take care of themselves.
To tackle the above highlighted impacts of conventional building methods, Green building methods comes in handy. Green building mechanism is a proactive way that address these issues through constructing buildings that : minimizes the use of the scarce natural resources, are very healthy and safe for people, and reduce harm to the environment through minimal or no gas emissions.
The Green Umbrella
Every city or municipality u...