How Green Building is positively affecting the construction industry…

Frankly, most, if not all, organizations are working towards lessening their carbon footprint and are finding ways to be more sustainable in their everyday operations. 

Whether that’s something as simple as using sustainable products, reusing and recycling, or moving to LED lights, companies are continually seeking out ways to become greener. In the construction industry especially, the switch to sustainability has skyrocketed in the last two decades. 

Statista states that the size of the U.S. green building market is at a staggering $81 billion. This, in part, can be explained by how the number of LEED-certified projects in the U.S. increased from 296 in 2006 to 67,200 in 2018.  

BigRentz recognizes that there are two main considerations to Green Building which are the materials that are used and the methods that are utilized in building construction projects. There are many sustainable materials that can be used in construction such as recycled plastic, laminated timber, bamboo, solar panels. Furthermore, BigRentz also identified a few of the main methods that construction companies can implement to become more sustainable which are:  

• Cut materials to reduce waste 
• Construct green buildings 
• Conserve energy  
• Manage construction sites to improve cleanliness  

However, there are numerous challenges when it comes to introducing and maintaining Green Building practices in organizations and construction projects. Unfortunately, implementing these tactics takes a long time. Training for construction workers can be costly and obtaining sustainable materials is also a challenge at the moment due to supply chain shortages.  

But becoming sustainable gravely outweighs the challenges. Green Built explains that with Green Building, the rate of which buildings use water, energy, and materials is drastically reduced, and because of that, we are able to minimize the consumption of our natural resources tremendously. In addition, in the United States, buildings account for 39% of total energy use, 68% of total electricity consumption, 12% of total water consumption, etc. Those percentages are staggering, but with the help of Green Building and introducing more sustainable practices in organizations, hopefully we can drive those percentages down. 

At Shiel Sexton, we believe that a building should make an impact, just not on the environment. That is why we stress the importance of sustainable building. We have scaled our green building program to a variety of projects that range from a $1 million office remodel to a $70 million dollar research building. Like our clients, we have a goal to reduce our impact on the environment, and we will continually find new ways to do so.