What are Sustainable Building Practices?
Our planet is reeling with climate change and environmental pollution. In such a scenario, businesses focus more on the intersection of people, the earth and profits. According to US Green Building Council, the built environment contributes around 39% of total carbon emissions. We need to counter-measure the havoc we create with our buildings. Sustainable building practices have gained momentum in shaping a greener future.
In this blog, we’ll emphasize some of the sustainable building best practices. Let’s get started!
What’s a Sustainable Building?
Sustainable or green buildings improve energy efficiency and reduce the ecological footprint due to their construction and features. Such buildings help abate GHG emissions and offer significant cost savings for your business.
That’s not all! Green buildings also foster a healthy workspace and enhance the occupant experience. Let’s now hover over to sustainable building best practices.
Top 5 Green Building Practices
In this section, we’ll catch a quick glimpse of the best green building practices. These practices are a blend of corporate ESG considerations. From construction to operation, sustainable building practices help promote ecological balance while also reaping significant profits for your business.
Sustainable Building Practice 1: Select Site Wisely
Prior to everything else, you must select sustainable land for your construction. Now this can be done in numerous ways.
You can choose a land with proximity to commuting options. This’ll discourage the use of personal vehicles. Furthermore, it would be better if your building site is near EV charging stations. This’ll help promote the use of EVs.
Next, you can also consider brownfield redevelopment. A brownfield is a piece of land abandoned previously due to contamination.
You can redevelop this area and preserve open spaces. As per studies, for every 1 acre of brownfield land redevelopment, 1.3 to 4.6 acres of open space is preserved. Let’s move on to the next sustainable building practice.
Sustainable Building Practice 2: Choose Green Materials
If you want to imbibe sustainability, choosing eco-friendly building materials is necessary. You need to source recyclable materials for construction purposes.
A few examples are recycled plastic, concrete precast slabs, and smart glass windows among others.
Furthermore, you should also consider locally sourced materials. This not only helps to save transportation costs and support the local economy but also reduces carbon emissions.
Sustainable Building Practice 3: Be Water Efficient
Be it in the construction or operation phase, water efficiency is always a top sustainable building practice. You can opt to install a two-stage toilet flush system, low-flow showerheads etc. Saving water reaps twin benefits- low energy usage and water bills.
Next is a rainwater harvesting system. Your society can store and use rainwater for non-potable purposes like toilet flushing, watering the gardens etc. Greywater recycling is yet another method to be water efficient.
Greywater recycling refers to treating wastewater without faecal contamination. This is usually generated from bathing etc. in the buildings. You can recycle this water and use it for other non-potable purposes.
Sustainable Building Practice 4: Maintain Indoor Air Quality
Maintaining indoor air quality is yet another method. You must ensure that proper ventilation systems are in place to keep pollutant buildup aloof. Make sure to use low-VOC paints for the walls. These contain less than 50g/L of volatile compounds.
Remember the sustainable building materials we talked about? Such non-toxic materials also enhance the air quality within buildings.
Sustainable Building Practice 5: Be Energy Efficient
Finally, you have to track your building’s energy consumption rates. During the construction phase, you can consider imbibing certain design principles that’ll enhance natural lighting and ventilation. This will reduce dependence on artificial energy sources.
In a similar vein, you can install energy-efficient appliances. In order to achieve energy efficiency in your HVAC system, make sure your walls are well-insulated.
Further, you can explore the integration of solar panels and wind turbines with your sustainable building to reduce dependency on fossil fuels. We agree that such endeavours involve huge investments but will lead to cost savings in the longer run.
Know more: Save Energy Consumption of HVAC with Predictive Maintenance
Now, let’s understand how smart building tech can help to maintain our built environment’s sustainability.
How does Smart Building Technology Drive Sustainability?
Smart building technology is the ultimate digital solution that integrates IoT sensors, data analytics etc. to optimize energy usage and occupant comfort.
Such software is the most essential sustainable practice. You’ll see why. This innovative solution helps you monitor energy usage in real-time. It enables automatic report generation on occupancy levels, room lighting and air conditioning rates.
You can further analyze these reports and develop energy-saving strategies. And the best part? Smart building technology has features like lighting and HVAC control based on occupancy rates.
Read more: Smart facility is the key to achieve green building objective
With such synergy between digital FM software and the aforesaid sustainable building practices, you’ll go miles in shaping a greener future.
Wrapping it Up
In this blog, we elaborated on the concept of sustainable building practices. From sustainable siting to adopting smart building technology, these practices will help you reduce the ecological footprint while saving costs. If you have any further queries, feel free to drop a comment.
Contact us for a free demo of how our expertise can help you achieve your business goals to the best.
Related Links
Role of digital facility management- Smart buildings, Green buildings, and Sustainable development.
How does green office help in achieving sustainability goals?
