Green projects are environmental friendly projects which work as a non-profit salvage centre to develop a culture of creative reuse by building a market place for the reclaimed materials. The main aim of the Green Projects is to protect the environment by reducing the amount of unusable materials which are placed in the landfills and are improperly disposed. These projects helps in decreasing the damage caused due to the catastrophes. The Green projects works to salvage building materials to be reused. The green project has prevented thousands of gallons of disposable waste to reach the rivers and other wet lands nearby so as to create eco-friendly surrounding marine environment. They create an eco-friendly and safe environment for the people.
As per the U.S Green building council in order to construct the Sustainable buildings and sites the following factors are to be kept in mind during the time of construction:
1. The construction of the building should be done in such a manner that they are minimally invasive and can tolerate the catastrophes.
2. The construction of building must be economical.
3. The buildings constructed must be efficient to operate.
4. Service provided to these buildings must be long-term.
So in order to construct the buildings keeping in mind the environmental perspective there are some strategies which you can follow:
Strategy-1: Early Assembling of experienced collaborative team
Building owners must involve owner, designer team, and contractor as soon as possible and build strategy which could take them to the end point of their goal. While establishing your goals you must keep in mind the LEED certification. LEED is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification given by the U.S green Building council. This certification includes all the factors for the sustainable site development. Also the standpoint you made for building the green project must include less consumption of water, energy and the selection of material to be used should be of good quality, which ensures consistency. If all the factors are well versed then the LEED might provide you with Gold certification rather than Silver or Platinum. Also integrated design must be ready and must have consent from all the members involved in building the green project.
Strategy-2: A Sustainable Design Consultant must be incorporated
The design consultant has idea about the recent strategies and criteria of the LEED, so it can help guide the owner and educate the team as well. The involvement of the outside party in your team helps you focus on your goals with a sustainable perspective. The Consultantâs work is to review the project and give the feedback. As the other members of the team are busy in developing a design process so the consultant could be best utilized to streamline the projects and fill up the gaps. The presence of consultant improves the chance of your success.
Strategy-3: Evaluation of the LEED scorecard must be done during the design process
The owner along with the team members must evaluate the scorecard to find out the most co-effective strategy to achieve the desired Certification by the LEED. While designing the LEED scorecard all the pros and cones are kept in mind and with the consent of the owner the most practical realities of the project are considered in the evaluation. The LEED score card evaluation needs the involvement of all the team members of the green building project. Each member of the green building project must evaluate credit by credit and come up with the project realities up to the ownerâs expectation.
Strategy-4: Improvement of energy performance through system optimization and early running of the Energy model
The Energy consumption is the main factor which should be kept in mind while constructing a Green building project and can be achieved through energy modeling. The technique involved in Energy modeling is to run the model and analyze through the results after modeling, how much energy saving is required. The Model itself acts as a technical review and come up with beneficial results.
Strategy-5: Planning for the reduction in water consumption
The water consumption can be reduced by the use of low-flow plumbing fixtures and native landscaping materials. With the consent of the owner you can use alternate plant material and irrigation system to reduce water consumption on landscaping. The Green buildings require landscaping to look attractive but lots of water is utilized in it. So, in order to reduce the consumption, you can design a suitable landscaping which do not use large amount of water and is also appealing to the building occupants.
Strategy-6: To reduce projectâs carbon footprints, renewable material and local sources must be utilized
The renewable resources are utilized to reduce the carbon-dioxide emission caused by the building construction industries and cement plants as well. Fly-ash derived from the burning coal is mixed with the concrete to make it stronger and durable. As the amount of cement in the concrete is the main reason for the increase in the amount of the carbon footprint. So, you need to reduce it by mixing fly-ash in-spite of cement in the concrete. Also the use of structural steel i.e. Rebar and other metal ducks are used which do not cause any carbon dioxide emission in it.
Strategy-7: Site selection must be done carefully
In order to make the LEED certification as the part of your strategy you need to start your work as early as possible. The selection of site is done by the owner before hiring the architect who does the site inspection later. So, as the owner you must keep in mind that the selected site covers up all the points to get the good LEED score card. In-spite of constructing the building in an open land you can clean and revitalize the existing site. The site selection must be done in such a manner that it is with in the inner city rather than at far place from the city so that you can get benefited easily and the density of the urban fabric is increased as well.
The green buildings project must be eco-friendly and mark up to the environmental point of view. I hope the above strategies will help you out to plan the design in a better way. So, start planning your project and hope you get the LEED certification.