Creating Sustainable Buildings

Sustainable buildings should have minimal impact on the environment, a sustainable building is one where the structure and its systems are environmentally responsible and makes efficient use of rend resources through the buildings lifetime, from construction, maintenance, renovation and demolition.

A sustainable building is also designed to maintain the surrounding environment, using green energy methods, such as renewable energy to operate as a net producer, rather than a net consumer of resources.

Buildings account for around 45% of the countries CO2 emissions, it isn’t just the construction process that is having an environmental impact. The majority of a building’s carbon footprint is from energy used in buildings.

More sustainable buildings provide numerous benefits, not only to the environment, but also economic and social benefits, other benefits include:

• Protection of the natural ecosystems and environmental biodiversity.

• Improvement in air and water quality.

• Improvement in living conditions, health and comfort of building occupants.

There are 6 important principles of sustainable building design:

1. Optimise site potential

Sustainable building design starts with selecting a site. This means researching the surrounding environment, and how the location and landscaping of your building might affect local ecosystems.

Sustainable building should look to reduce and control storm-water runoff, and where possible, support the natural habitat.

2. Optimise energy use

It’s important for sustainable buildings to find ways to reduce their energy load, and at the same time increase their energy efficiency and maximise the use of renewable energy.  The building should look to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels, this should start with the ethos of build tight, ventilate right.  A building should be insulated as much as possible to minimise heat losses and its heat demand, thus making best use of scarce resources.  A building such as this will then require energy efficient ventilation systems, minimising fan powers and heat losses and refrigerant based systems should only be used as a last resort.

3. Protect and conserve water

The construction of a building can reduces the ecological and hydrological function of the land and so a sustainable building should look to minimise this and reduce those impacts.

It’s also important to, where possible, use water efficiently, such as reusing or recycling water for on-site use.

4. Optimise building space and material use

As the worlds’ population continues to grow, the demand for natural resources also increases, so it is of utmost importance that a sustainable building is designed using sustainable building materials, to help minimise environmental impacts and resource depletion.

Sustainable materials not only improve the lifecycle of the building, but they also reduce the impact on human health and contribute to improved occupant safety.

5. Enhance indoor environmental quality

Indoor environmental quality also has a significant impact on the health of a building’s occupants, as well as their comfort and level of productivity.

Sustainable buildings maximise the use of daylight, and implement appropriate ventilation and moisture control, removing pollutants and improving indoor air quality. It’s also important to optimise acoustic performance of the building and give occupants control over lighting and temperature systems.

6. Optimise operational and maintenance practices

The ongoing operation and maintenance of a sustainable building focuses on reducing the impact of the building on the land. Here, it is important to try and ensure that systems are easy to and maintain and that maintenance is minimal, and systems are accessible.