Living Buildings Society\'s Dependence on Green Technology

Living Buildings

Society's dependence on green technology and environmentally friendly building practices are at the forefront of the construction industry in today's world. Engineers, designers, builders and trades people are all involved in reshaping the industry to an organization dedicated to help preserving the Earth's natural resources and its own way of doing things.

Sustainable construction is a real and positive force in the building world an it is important to understand how these processes work and are beneficial for communities who practice such efforts. The purpose of this essay is to explain and contextualize the Declare Database which is a segment of the Living Building Challenge. This program is helping construction teams build with confidence that their projects are eco-friendly and are mindful of the damage that these efforts normally have without this emphasis. The essay will first describe the program before explaining how the complex database integrates data and information to help all that work within the supply chain become more aware of their decisions and how they affect the environment.

Green Building

"Green building materials are composed of renewable, rather than nonrenewable resources. Green materials are environmentally responsible because impacts are considered over the life of the product," (Spiegel and Meadows, 1999). Sustainable building should be the goal of every construction project because of the many benefits that accompany this approach. The replacement and maintenance costs of green and sustainable building projects are much lower and the amount of costs that will go into upkeep is significantly lower as well.

Greeen building materials are designed to conserve energy and provide even more savings to the project. Green building materials should provide layers of flexibility to the project as these types of materials are engineered to allow for extreme changes in the environment.

By using green building materials into building projects, the environmental dangers are significantly lowered and a moral and ethical principle is introduced as another benefit. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agrees with this stance: "Building construction uses large quantities of natural resources; in fact, construction activities use 60% of the raw materials, other than food and fuel, used in the entire U.S. economy. And the nearly 170 million tons of annual building construction, renovation, and demolition derived wastes (commonly referred to as C&D materials) account for nearly 60% of the nation's non-industrial, non-hazardous solid waste generation."

The Living Building Challenge

Although the benefits of using green building materials has become more and more obvious throughout recent years, outlets that serve this market are still developing. According to its website, The Living Building Challenge "is a philosophy, advocacy tool and certification program that addresses development at all scales. The purpose of the Living Building Challenge is straightforward -- it defines the most advanced measure of sustainability in the built environment possible today and acts to diminish the gap between current limits and ideal solutions." Among this larger project is the Declare Database, a collection of vendors and products who sell green building products. The idea behind the Declare program is to help purchasers understand how to best source and locate products that support regional markets while ensuring that their materials are up to standard.

For consumers of building products, Declare can help locate items that have openly declared their contents, processes and manufacturing locations. Many times engineers need specific physical data and information specifications which can also be found in this database. Although the Declare database as part of the Living Building Challenge lists these products, it is not necessarily a consumer watchdog and products are not tested.

Manufacturers also benefit greatly from the Declare program in many different ways that can help these organizations create a competitive advantage in their market segment. The demand for green products is very strong and this program allows manufacturers to place themselves in the middle of this booming market. Manufacturers must declare their products and their processes in order to gain access to be included in the database. A modest fee is charged to these suppliers and must be renewed every year to ensure quality and satisfaction to the consumer base.

Another benefit of this program is Declare's inclusion in "Green Wizard." This program is a "comprehensive Product Management Workflow and project collaboration provider used by thousands of design and construction professionals. Greenwizard enables the design and construction community to better manage products and projects, collaborate and asses compliance with the Living Building Challenge and LEED credits, simplifying the process for building healthy, sustainable and efficient construction projects."

The Declare database system is quite easy to navigate and can help buyers find exactly what they are looking for in the place that it is needed. Products can still be used in the Living Building Challenge's many projects that are not listed in Declare.