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The International Finance Corporation (IFC) is an international financial institution that offers investment, advisory, and asset-management services to encourage private-sector development in less developed countries. The IFC is a member of the World Bank Group and is headquartered in Washington, D.C. in the United States.
Energy Star is a program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that promotes energy efficiency. The program provides information on the energy consumption of products and devices using different standardized methods. The Energy Star label is found on more than 75 different certified product categories, homes, commercial buildings, and industrial plants.
Green building refers to both a structure and the application of processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life-cycle: from planning to design, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and demolition. This requires close cooperation of the contractor, the architects, the engineers, and the client at all project stages. The Green Building practice expands and complements the classical building design concerns of economy, utility, durability, and comfort. In doing so, the three dimensions of sustainability, i.e., planet, people and profit across the entire supply chain need to be considered.
The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) is a non-profit organization, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, which is committed to sustainable development and livable urban communities.
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a green building certification program used worldwide. Developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) it includes a set of rating systems for the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of green buildings, homes, and neighborhoods which aims to help building owners and operators be environmentally responsible and use resources efficiently.
A House Energy Rating is the index of a building's thermal performance for residential homes in Australia.
A zero-energy building (ZE), also known as a zero net energy (ZNE) building, net-zero energy building (NZEB), net zero building is a building with zero net energy consumption, meaning the total amount of energy used by the building on an annual basis is equal to the amount of renewable energy created on the site, or in other definitions by renewable energy sources offsite, using technology such as heat pumps, high efficiency windows and insulation, and solar panels. The goal is that these buildings contribute less overall greenhouse gas to the atmosphere during operations than similar non-ZNE buildings. They do at times consume non-renewable energy and produce greenhouse gases, but at other times reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas production elsewhere by the same amount. Zero-energy buildings are not only driven by a want to have less of an impact on the environment, but they are also driven by money. Tax breaks as well as savings on energy costs make Zero-energy buildings financially viable. A similar concept approved and implemented by the European Union and other agreeing countries is nearly Zero Energy Building (nZEB), with the goal of having all buildings in the region under nZEB standards by 2020. Terminology tends to vary between countries and agencies; the IEA and European Union most commonly use "net zero", with "zero net" mainly used in the USA.
Domestic housing in the United Kingdom presents a possible opportunity for achieving the 20% overall cut in UK carbon dioxide emissions targeted by the Government for 2010. However, the process of achieving that drop is proving problematic given the very wide range of age and condition of the UK housing stock.
Efficient energy use, sometimes simply called energy efficiency, is the goal to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services. For example, insulating a building allows it to use less heating and cooling energy to achieve and maintain a thermal comfort. Installing light-emitting diode bulbs, fluorescent lighting, or natural skylight windows reduces the amount of energy required to attain the same level of illumination compared to using traditional incandescent light bulbs. Improvements in energy efficiency are generally achieved by adopting a more efficient technology or production process or by application of commonly accepted methods to reduce energy losses.
This article provides examples of green building programs in the United States. These programs span the public, private, and non-profit sectors, and all have the goal of increasing energy efficiency and the sustainability of the built environment.
Green buildings in Australia are assessed and rated by a variety of government and independent ratings systems.
Green building on college campuses is the purposeful construction of buildings on college campuses that decreases resource usage in both the building process and also the future use of the building. The goal is to reduce CO
2 emissions, energy use, and water use, while creating an atmosphere where students can be healthy and learn. Universities across the country are building to green standards set forth by the USGBC, United States Green Building Council. The USGBC is a non-profit organization that promotes sustainability in how buildings are designed and built. This organization created the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system, which is a certification process that provides verification that a building is environmentally sustainable. In the United States, commercial and residential buildings account for 70 percent of the electricity use and over 38 percent of CO
2 emissions. Because of these huge statistics regarding resource usage and emissions, the room for more efficient building practices is dramatic. Since college campuses are where the world's future leaders are being taught, colleges are choosing to construct new buildings to green standards in order to promote environmental stewardship to their students. Colleges across the United States have taken leading roles in the construction of green building in order to reduce resource consumption, save money in the long run, and instill the importance on environmental sustainability on their students. It is a better way to motivate new generation to live a sustainable life.
A green building is one which uses less water, optimises energy efficiency, conserves natural resources, generates less waste and provides healthier spaces for occupants, as compared to a conventional building. The Indian green building council (IGBC) is the leading green building movement in the country.
The Philippine Green Building Council (PHILGBC) is a national non-stock, non-profit organization that promotes the sharing of knowledge on green practices to the property industry to ensure a sustainable environment. It was organized to serve as a single voice in the promotion of holistic and market-based green building practices, to facilitate the sharing of green building information and practices in the building industry, and to serve as a non-partisan venue for the development of the BERDE Green Building Rating System.
Portside is a 139-metre-tall (456 ft) building in Cape Town, South Africa. Completed in 2014, it is the city's tallest building and at the time of completion, was Cape Town's first significant skyscraper developed in the central business district (CBD) in 15 years.
Bangladesh is one of the most vulnerable nations in the world due to climate change. As the ninth most populous country and twelfth most densely populated countries in the world, its rising population and limited land space have put tremendous strains on the urban ecosystem. The capital of Dhaka itself underwent severe transformations in recent years to catch up the increased rate of urbanisation. This change was paralleled by a boom in the real estate, construction and housing industry. According to United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Dhaka is one of the most polluted cities in the world.
NABERS, the National Australian Built Environment Rating System, is an initiative by the government of Australia to measure and compare the environmental performance of Australian buildings and tenancies. There are NABERS rating tools for commercial office buildings to measure greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency, water efficiency, waste efficiency and indoor environment quality. There are also energy/greenhouse and water rating tools for hotels, shopping centres and data centres.
The house energy rating (HER) is a standard measure of comparison by which one can evaluate the energy efficiency of a new or an existing building. The comparison is generally done for energy requirements for heating and cooling of indoor space. The energy is the main criterion considered by any international building energy rating scheme but there are some other important factors such as production of greenhouse gases emission, indoor environment quality, cost efficiency and thermal comfort, which are considered by some schemes. Basically, the energy rating of a residential building provides detailed information on the energy consumption and the relative energy efficiency of the building. Hence, HERs inform consumers about the relative energy efficiency of homes and encourage them to use this information in making their house purchase decision. There are many energy rating tools by which one can calculate the energy performance of a building. Basically all these tools involve a numerical description or prepare a computer-based model for the rating of a building against standard occupancy and activity templates. So, HERS uses a computer-simulation based methods for assessing the energy efficiency of buildings under standard conditions and its potential for improvement.
The Green Parking Council (GPC), a nonprofit organization and affiliate of the International Parking Institute provided leadership and oversight for the green conversion of parking facilities to sustainable, environmentally responsible assets. GPC expanded green parking practices and promoted sustainable urban mobility through its Certified Green Garage rating system. The Certified Green Garage rating system was acquired by the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) and is administered by the Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI), the certification arm of the USGBC. Rebranded and launched as the Parksmart rating system, Parksmart is now aligned with the full suite of LEED programs under the USGBC organization.
Green building certification systems are a set of rating systems and tools that are used to assess a building or a construction project's performance from a sustainability and environmental perspective. Such ratings aim to improve the overall quality of buildings and infrastructures, integrate a life cycle approach in its design and construction, and promote the fulfillment of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals by the construction industry. Buildings that have been assessed and are deemed to meet a certain level of performance and quality, receive a certificate proving this achievement.
References
- ↑ "Green Building Council of South Africa". Archived from the original on 2009-11-22. Retrieved 2009-11-17.
- ↑ "Green Building Council of Australia". Archived from the original on 2008-07-05. Retrieved 2009-11-17.
- ↑ SANS 204
- ↑ Green Building Journal of South Africa Archived 2009-11-28 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ GBCSA
- ↑ PropertyWheel