BUSINESS FEATURE Seling Green By Marcy Marro, Managing Editor
Continuing to educate the public is key as the green building industry continues to grow
The U.S. Green Building Council recently an- nounced that the total footprint of commer- cial projects receiving LEED certifi cation has surpassed 2 billion square feet. And there are an additional 7 billion square feet of currently registered projects across the globe. The USGBC reports that each day, 2 million
square feet of commercial building space in more than 130 countries is receiving LEED certifi cation. It also notes that there are nearly 50,000 commercial projects, making up 9 billion square feet of construc- tion space, currently participating in LEED. Addition- ally, there are nearly 23,600 homes across the U.S. that have earned LEED for Homes certifi cation, with another 86,000 projects in the pipeline. All together, there are more than 159,000 LEED registered and certifi ed projects around the world. There is little doubt that the green building
industry continues to grow at a very rapid pace, and New York City-based Turner Construction Co. has the numbers to prove it. According to Michael Deane, LEED AP BD+C, vice president and chief sustainability offi cer at Turner, the company’s green building business has grown by about $400 million a year for each of the last four years. “Last year, 58 percent of our business, or about $4.6 bil- lion worth of our volume, was green buildings,” he says. “And it’s grown every single year since I’ve been at Turner, which is from 2004.”
Benefi ts and Challenges
The benefi ts of sustainable building are pretty well known, and, as Deane says, “people recognize that green buildings are better. They are more energy effi cient, they are more water effi cient, and they create a better environment to spend a lot of time in. And, they have a higher asset value.” On the plus side, Deane says that green build- ings can be built for the same cost as traditional
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construction. The fact that sustainable buildings are more energy effi cient also means that they cost less to operate. “[Green buildings] tend to be more pleasant places to live or work or go to school because of the material selection,” Deane adds. “You don’t have things with chemicals that off-gas and so forth.” Even though there are a lot of reasons to build
energy-effi cient buildings, there are still some people who are hesitating. “I think the major rea- son that people would choose not to build a green building is simply that they are not informed about the benefi ts,” Deane says. “I think [people] have the wrong idea sometimes that a green building is more diffi cult or expensive to build. And that’s simply not true.” When it comes to having a building LEED
certifi ed, Bob Zabcik, PE, LEED AP BD+C, direc- tor of research and development, NCI Group Inc., Houston, believes that the largest reason stopping people is that they aren’t familiar with the require- ments. He also notes that some people have had bad experiences in the past with trying to get a building certifi ed, which may prevent them from wanting to try again. “I think by and large, it’s just that people are not as familiar with the requirements or the process, and because of that unfamiliarity, they just don’t want to take the risk of the extra time that it might take for documentation and things like that,” he says.
Importance of education
Educating builders, architects and potential clients is the best way to show the benefi ts of sustainable building. Organizations such as the American Insti- tute of Architects, Metal Construction Association and the Metal Building Manufacturers Association, all offer education programs. Manufacturers such as NCI and Memphis, Tenn.-based Varco Pruden Buildings, a division of BlueScope Buildings North
Built by CHG Building Systems Inc., Renton, Wash., the 81,000-square-foot Tacoma Recovery & Transfer Center in Tacoma, Wash., received LEED Silver. (Photos courtesy of Varco Pruden Buildings)