Chapter 01

Introduction to Green Building and Sustainability

ENG / KAREEM ELNABWY

1. Sustainability.
2. Green Building.
3. Climate change
4. Built environment.
5. Ecology.
6. Eco-system.
7. Environmental design.
8. Triple bottom line.
9. Greenhouse gases.
10. Carbon footprint.
11. Low-carbon buildings (LCB).
12. Net zero energy building.
 1- Sustainability:

Sustainability is a complex term that can be applied to almost everything in our life, it is a broad
discipline that when we hear about it we tend to think of the various renewable energy sources. That
will enable us to define sustainability as the study of how natural systems function and produce
everything for the environment to remain for the future.

We should realize that it’s not easy to come up with a definition that all people will agree about. In
general, it’s the process of making life possible for younger generations, and the ability to continue a
defined behavior indefinitely.

In broader terms, Sustainability is the ability to sustain or the capacity to endure.

Definitions of sustainability

According to ‘’National Environmental Policy Act’’ sustainability defined as: to create and
maintain conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony, that permit
fulfilling the social, economic, and other requirements of present and future generations.

https://www.epa.gov/sustainability/learn-about-sustainability#what

In the US the original term was sustainable development, as per the UN Bruntland commission it
defines it as follows: sustainable development is development that meets the needs of the present
without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainable_development

Some other people describe sustainability as quality that should have a lifestyle impact on people and
their life.

Research and innovation will change the sustainability definition and how it affects our life according
to the future generation believes and how they look towards their future, and this will broaden the
possibilities for a new and contemporary definitions that will affect the whole sustainability
processes and strategies.

2- Green Building:

The first time everyone hears the word green building will have their own vision about it, questions
will be raised like how the building will look like? Is it the sustainable features that the building
applied?, What are the type of materials that were used?, and how people will interact with the
building?.

In fact, it’s all the above, you will have sustainable features applied with specific types of materials
and it will definitely change how your building will look like with people interacting and having a better
productivity.

The important thing is, green building is a term defined as a process for creating sustainable
buildings from the inception to the end of building life-time.
The U.S. EPA says ‘’Green Building refers to both a structure and the using of processes that are
environmentally responsible and resource-efficient throughout a building's life cycle: from siting to
design, construction, operations, maintenance, renovation, and demolition.’’

Green buildings are energy and water efficient, generate less waste, and are healthier to live, work, or
go to school compared to conventional buildings. Benefits of green buildings can be categorized
along three fronts: Environmental, Economic and Social benefits.

The environmental benefits include the protection of ecosystems and biodiversity, improved air and
water quality, less waste flowing into waste streams, and the conservation of natural resources.

The economic benefits include energy and water savings, increased property value, improved
occupant’s presence, increased employee productivity, sales improvements and less infrastructure
strain.

The social benefits include improved health, better lifestyle, more recreational activities and more
opportunities for public transportation which result in more physical activity.

There is a goal that green buildings are considering, which is to make earth more sustainable by
reducing and eliminating the negative impacts that built environment has on earth by applying a vast
array of green practices, techniques and skills.

3- Climate change

Climate change is threatening the existence of the whole planet, it increases daily with the worst
practices by human beings are undertaken worldwide, the ozone gap is increasing, the problem
requires a rapid solution.

Green buildings are implemented to reduce the negative impacts of the built environment and it can
minimize the carbon effects that destroy the ozone layer.

Green buildings can aid in decreasing the problems of climate change while it will also help the
communities in having better performing buildings that help both people and the environment.

Impact of buildings and construction on environment:

36% of total energy use and 65% of electricity consumption

30% of greenhouse gas emissions

30% of raw materials are used.

30% of waste output (136 million tons annually)

12% of potable water consumption

An increase in the adoption of green building practices could reduce this energy consumption
significantly. In addition, occupants of green buildings enjoy healthier indoor environments and higher
productivity levels.
 4- Built environment:

It’s all the manmade surroundings that was created for human activities that differs from type, scale,
identity and function.

The built environment includes all the physical things constructed by humans as aids to living, it
differs in size as it could be a building or a city, and it includes the infrastructure that provides service
to the buildings.

The built environment provides a lot of benefits to humans starting from housing, infrastructure,
services and utilities, shading, roads and transportation routes and many more.

However, around half of all non-renewable resources are used in the built environment and
construction processes, making it one of the least sustainable industries in the world.

Challenges of built environment:

The most important challenge that faces the built environment is the sustainable management of
finite natural resources, here are a few common problems:

Materials:

The spaces and places that we live in which enable us to enjoy our living, are defined by the type of
materials and structures used in their construction.

From design to construction, the designer should fully understand the environment in which they are
creating their structures and know exactly the cost, sizing and characteristics of the materials and
structural elements that will be used in construction. The design should offer safe objects of long-
term value, and eliminate the concept of waste through reduction, even considering the value of
waste in producing new materials.

Ex. Reducing the size of the material in the design to match the sizes available in the market will
reduce the amount of waste generated from the cutting processes.

Energy:

Another facet is the amount of energy used within our urban areas, buildings are using a Hugh
amount of energy especially in operation and after occupation, and usually it’s spent in heating,
cooling, lighting and ventilation.

Ex. Designing the building with the appropriate orientation will reduce the amount of energy needed
to cool or heat the building, as per the weather of the area.

Water:

Could you imagine the amount of wastewater that appliances discharge from our homes? Or even in
commercial and retail buildings? The main reason behind this is the fixtures and appliances we use
as most of it is not efficient and uses a lot of water to do its process.
Water conservation strategies can reduce the overall amount of consumption while using alternative
water resources can even be used in some appliances and fixtures.

Ex. Rainwater collected from roofs can be used to flush toilets and for landscape irrigation.

5- Ecology:

Ecology deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings.

Earth is now a collection of ecosystems ranging from the relatively undisturbed to the completely
built, with the majority of people living in urban environments shifting from the rural areas.

Ecology also provides information about the benefits of ecosystems and how we can use Earth's
resources in ways that leave the environment healthy for future generations.

An increasing understanding of our relationship with the natural environment is changing our ideas
about the design and development of our human-built environment, if we will relate ecology to the
built environment, we should integrate more natural, native vegetation and plants to our designs, use
less impervious surfaces from pavements and pedestrian routes, be able to create designs that
promotes biophilic sense between humans and nature, its common terminology is natural resource
management which should be integrated in the built environment design.

6- Eco-system:

An ecosystem is any geographic area that includes all of the organisms and non-living parts of their
physical environment. An ecosystem can be a natural wilderness area, a suburban lake or forest, or a
heavily used area such as a city. The more natural an ecosystem is, the more ecosystem services it
provides.

An ecosystem approach in design and construction provides a helpful starting point for ensuring that
the built environment is designed and managed based on all its dependences on the natural
environment. It encourages full consideration of the benefits provided by natural features in and
around buildings, roads and settlements. These natural features, which are increasingly referred to as
green infrastructure, can add value to final design. Street trees and existing public open spaces are
important 'natural' features. However, green infrastructure encompasses broader features such as
waterways and wildlife corridors. It includes the river catchments that supply water and reduce flood
risk.

Ex. Shearer's Foods plant in Massillon, Ohio is the first food manufacturing plant to receive LEED
Platinum status, it uses the eco-system approach in design and construction through adhering to
LEED rating system and the result was the LEED platinum certificate.

Ex. Phipps Conservatory & Botanical Gardens in Pittsburgh has multiple LEED certifications, including
the world's only Platinum-certified greenhouse and a Platinum-certified and net-zero energy Center
for Sustainable Landscapes.
 7- Environmental design:

We can describe environmental design as the process of addressing surrounding environmental

The main goal of environmental design in the building and construction industry is to reduce the
impact on nature, society and humans by implementing, evaluating and verifying the environmental
attributes and performance of the building.

Evaluation of environmental design can be done by assessing certain categories like waste, water,
energy, emissions, air and many other categories.

The required assessments and evaluation criteria are defined by either a 3rd party organization or by
local and governmental regulations that set the rules and procedures to be implemented and verified.

Environmental design can be implemented by achieving a set of strategies and by creating design
solutions that reduce the building impact on the surroundings environment.

LEED is one of the 3rd party rating systems that set an array of strategies, solutions and metrics that
can be used to track and verify the performance and to achieve a certificate for excellence in green
building application, while environmental design and construction is the core of the LEED rating
system, and it relates to all the strategies required to be implemented.

8- Triple bottom line:

To be able to understand the triple bottom line, we must first know that the “bottom line” refers to the
last line on an income statement that shows the profits made by a business.

But when the bottom line took precedence over all else, this led to the destruction of natural
resources and affected people in a bad way.

The triple bottom line expands this definition so that there is not just one bottom line (profit), but
there are two more (people and planet) and it’s called the three Ps.

This new definition considers the environmental, social and economic aspects to be implemented in
any business, design approach or can be used as a specific procedure in any field.

In the field of sustainability, it’s called the three pillars of sustainability where it is a balancing.

Social Sustainability:

Activities focus on maintaining mutual beneficial relationships with employees, customers and the
community.

These activities often have benefits in terms of positive profile and customer and community
support.

It can come as a form of training, customer service and marketing communications.

Activities focus on the impact of resource usage, hazardous substances, waste and emissions on the
physical environment.

These activities may have a direct benefit for a business by reducing costs.

It can come as a form of natural resource use, environmental management, pollution prevention and
energy efficiency.

Economic Sustainability:

Activities focus on business efficiency, productivity and profit.

It can come as a form of profit, cost savings, economic growth and research and development.

9- Greenhouse gases:

Greenhouse gases (GHGs) are gases that keep heat in the earth’s atmosphere. Although greenhouse
gases do occur naturally, human activity contributes a great deal to greenhouse gas emissions.

Greenhouse gases can be emitted through transport, land clearance, and the production and
consumption of food, fuels, manufactured goods, materials, wood, roads, buildings, and services. It is
often expressed in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide, or its equivalent of other GHGs emitted.

Sources of greenhouse gases are from transportation, electricity production, industry, Commercial
and residential, agriculture and land use forestry.

There are a great many ways to reduce GHG emissions:

· Energy Conservation and Efficiency

· Appropriate Heating and Power Plant Fuel Choices

· On-Site Renewable Energy Technologies

· Buy Green Power and carbon offsets

· Maximize Space Utilization to Minimize or Avoid New Construction

· Design and Construct Only the Greenest, Most Energy Efficient New Buildings

· Sustainable Transportation Solutions

· Other GHG Mitigation Strategies (waste disposal, purchasing, food)

· Carbon Offsets to Address Remaining Emissions

In relation to green building, LEED addresses all the above-mentioned issues and provides specific
strategies categorized in a way that helps the people understand easily the processes.
 10- Carbon footprint:

Carbon footprint is the total set of greenhouse gas emissions caused by an individual, event,
organization or product expressed as CO2e.

Your carbon footprints — or your impact on the environment — measures the greenhouse gases that
you are responsible for creating. Common activities like using electricity and driving a car emit those
gases.

In other words: When you drive a car, the engine burns fuel which creates a certain amount of CO2,
depending on its fuel consumption and the driving distance. (CO2 is the chemical symbol for carbon
dioxide). When you heat your house with oil, gas or coal, then you also generate CO2. Even if you heat
your house with electricity, the generation of the electrical power may also have emitted a certain
amount of CO2. When you buy food and goods, the production of the food and goods also emits
some quantities of CO2.

The mitigation of carbon footprints through the development of alternative projects, such as solar or
wind energy or reforestation, represents one way of reducing a carbon footprint and is often known
as carbon offsetting.

Carbon Offset

Carbon offset is a reduction in emissions of carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases made in order to
compensate for or to offset an emission made elsewhere.

To better explain the carbon offset, Carbon offsetting works by purchasing carbon credits which are
sold in metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tons CO 2e). Projects which sell carbon credits
include wind farms which displace fossil fuel, household device projects which reduce fuel
requirements for cook stoves and boiling water in low-income households, forest protection from
illegal logging, methane capture from landfill gas and agriculture, reforestation for small-hold farmers
and run-of-river hydro power and geothermal energy. These projects have to demonstrate that they
require carbon finance from the sale of carbon credits in order to be financially viable and achieve
greenhouse gas emission reductions.

In order to achieve points for carbon offsets under LEED v4, carbon offsets must be used to cover
emissions associated with specific percentages of on-site energy use.

Carbon Calculator

It’s a method that will measure your impact on our climate through Calculations which are typically
based on annual emissions from the previous 12 months.

Carbon footprint calculator estimates how many tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases
your equipment and products choices create each year.

It’s a viable tool for building design and construction as it will help mitigating the carbon dioxide
effects by analyzing many materials, products and assemblies.
Constructing new buildings and sites with the least possible environmental impact involves three
important steps: reduce, renew and offset. offsets are by funding resources or activities like
renewable energy and land protection resources that benefit and protect the planet.

To estimate your annual greenhouse gas emissions: https://www3.epa.gov/carbon-footprint-

11- Low-carbon buildings (LCB)

Low-carbon buildings are buildings designed and constructed to release very little or no carbon at all
during their lifetime.

The buildings achieve low carbon percentages after successfully implementing strategies through
the three phases, design, construction and operations.

Design:

- Orientation of the building should be studied well.

- Design the form and fabric of the building to minimize energy demand.

- Water efficiency solutions and strategies.

- Energy modeling and lighting analysis.

Construction:

- Materials are ordered cut-to-size.

- Materials with low emissions factors associated (e.g., recycled materials)

- Materials suppliers as close as possible from the construction site.

- Demolition waste to be diverted from landfills to recycling or reusing.

Operation:

- Energy and water consumption tracking.

- Usage of low-carbon cleaning chemicals and products.

- Awareness and education sessions to occupants.

LEED credits are addressed in both design and construction credits to be implemented in the
applicable phase, while there are some other credits that require monitoring and sharing committing
with USGBC to make sure the building is performing as intended.
 12- Net zero energy building:

Building with zero net energy consumption, meaning the total amount of energy used by the building
on an annual basis is roughly equal to the amount of renewable energy created on the site or by
renewable energy sources elsewhere. These buildings consequently contribute less overall
greenhouse gas to the atmosphere than similar non-NZE buildings.

The net-zero target is challenging. Homes and other structures that create almost as much energy as
they use are called net-zero energy buildings. Nevertheless, it's possible for a building to produce an
energy surplus, sending excess back to the electrical grid. Facilities or homes that produce more
energy than they use are known as energy-plus buildings.

Ex. Messequartier housing project

The complex is built to meet the passive house standard. The main focus was to offer a mix of
various common spaces (like service areas, a nursery, and student and senior dwellings) in a central
location and a lot of open areas.

The house has a massive construction with insulated brick walls. The roof and the cellar ceiling
consist of reinforced concrete, the windows have triple glazing.

The house is heated by district heating. It has a mechanical ventilation system with 75% heat
recovery. The demand of hot water is partially covered by 700 m² solar thermal panels on the roof.
Solar thermal panels are used for heating the hot water and as support for heating. A heat pump is
used as preheating of the incoming air of the mechanical ventilation system.

The building is considered a zero-energy building for its sustainable energy achievements.

13- Conclusion:

Green building is becoming mandatory for our built environment, studies are showing the great
influence it has on the environment. While Sustainability is an enormously complex subject and the
industry reflects that, one must start somewhere. LEED rating system breaks green design and
construction practices down into six readily identifiable categorizes which are:

- Location and Transportation

- Sustainable Sites

- Water Efficiency

- Energy and Atmosphere

- Materials and Resources

- Indoor environmental quality

Each category will be described and analyzed in detail in other chapters of the book.