The Declare Database and the Living Building Challenge's role in sustainable construction

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."

Analysis

While The Living Building Challenge and the Declare database are useful steps in becoming more green and environmentally friendly, many problems still exist in this area. Declare is a rather small database compared to the thousands and thousands of building projects that are underway at any given time. The demand for these products must continue to grow in order for market forces to take hold and these products begin to dominate the market. Attitudes and political support must be garnered to help the construction industry move in this direction.

Green building is a delicate practice. It is often not in the best interests of the builders to design long lasting and eco-friendly projects because large profits are associated with maintenance and rebuild costs that are associated with the traditional construction supplies. A fine balance must be struck where green products are not overly-economical as this might eradicate the building trades themselves. Patience and deliberate planning should be considered in the future when considering such efforts as the Living Building Challenge and its included Declare database.