Going Green is Good Business
A ‘green’ building is a time-tested, practical, and intuitive method to design, construction, or operation that eliminates negative impacts and can create positive impacts on natural surroundings and climate. Green buildings help to protect our natural environment while also improving our quality of life. Green building structures are energy efficient, save resources, create healthier interior conditions, and provide durable and beautiful attractive spaces that use environmentally friendly materials. Green building includes integrated design concepts, solar orientation, optimal footprint sizing, glazing awareness, material durability, economic life-cycle analysis, material reuse, and salvage, natural material content, locally available materials, and economic sustainability.
Apart from that, A building can have a number of attributes that make it ‘green’ such as energy, water, and other resources are used more efficiently, use of renewable energy such as solar and biogas, measures to reduce waste as well as facilitation of re-use and recycle, comfortable indoor air quality, use of non-toxic, ethical and long-lasting materials, environmental consideration in the design, construction, and operation of the building, consideration of occupants’ life quality and a design that allows changes in the environment.
In addition to major environmental and occupant benefits, green buildings offer various financial advantages to both profit and non-profit affordable housing developers who include it in their business strategies, such as lower operating costs namely water, electricity bills, and gas, green buildings lead to a higher return on investments, the ability of green buildings to attract and retain corporate and government tenants, green buildings reduce liability and risk, marketability of green buildings enhanced productivity, healthy and comfortable indoor environment provided by a green building contributes to less illness, reduced absenteeism, lower employee turnover, and retracts top job talents. Together, these benefits add value to affordable housing by creating more durable, safe, and economically viable living environments.
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