Sustainable building practices

Abstract

Sustainable building has become the buzz word of commercial construction in the U.S. during the past decade. While sustainable building practices and energy efficiencies have been on the building industries radar screen for a number of years, the media intensity and owner interest seams to ebb and flow with the cost of energy. However since the LEED system has gained such popularity in the commercial construction arena, more and more owners are demanding that their project be LEED certified; or the owner’s are at least having serious talks with their architect and builders regarding sustainability and the LEED certification process. A natural outgrowth of public awareness of energy efficiencies in the building process is governmental pressure to achieve certain prescribed outcomes. Is the government leading the charge, following a surge or acting as an impediment to the use of sustainable building practices? State and local building practices will be examined to determine if there is a trend towards either of the scenarios. While this research will primarily focus on U.S. building practices, along with federal, state and local laws that have an impact on the built environment; a cursory look at the efforts of other countries and their energy practices will be performed to provide some insight into the worldwide efforts towards sustainable building