BD+C White Paper: Green Building + The Bottom Line (2006)
"The ‘New Reality’ of Green Building from Environmental Cause to Financial Opportunity." I wanted to put up a quick post regarding BD+C’s new green building white paper–it’s big-time informative, talking about green building in the context of office, retail, hotel, restaurant, residential, education, healthcare, and government buildings. If you don’t read anything else (it’s a dense report of 64 pages, of which about 10-15 pages are for so called green sponsors), read the Executive Summary on page three to catch a drift about what’s going on in the industry. One issue that keeps popping up is the issue of whether green buildings cost more than code-built buildings. For one thing, certification will cost some money (unless it’s LEED-Platinum), but other than that, there’s a small premium that an owner will pay. But that’s when you analyze the building on a first costs basis. If you’re looking at first costs + operating costs (which the industry is still trying to work out), green buildings can be pretty attractive. With the possibility of higher occupancy rates, less tenant turnover, and less $$ on energy + water, green building is a phenomenon to be reckoned with. Plus, green buildings try to source materials locally, so to the extent that this happens, $$ spent on materials stay in the cities you’re trying to rebuild and develop. There are lots of positives…
Building Design + Construction’s Green Building White Paper 2006 [registration required]