Efficiency of Green
Design in supporting
Social, economic and
Ecological sustainabilities
Reduce,
Reuse and Recycle are the most popular words which authors and
environmentalists use in the ecological books and journals when talking about
green design. To realize the green design importance, the harmful problems
which the earth suffers from should be explained first
Why
inefficient design concerns us!
The important thing to be known is
there is no
survive without adopting
efficient green design in the built
environment.
Implementing the notion of green design is
very important to be pre-wired of the catastrophic disasters that all the
systems within the environment will face in next few decades. Shortage in
energy and food and a radical change in our current life style may happen. With the beginning of the 21st century, the
Earth has started to be in the worst situation has ever seen since its creation
billions of years ago with nonstop giving, it is getting older and older. There
are many evidences show the impact of the human consumption of the earth
resources starting with air pollution by burning gases for different kind of
energies, ending with population growth problems which means more food and
variety in life styles . Day after day more destruction happens to earth nature
by human being which sometimes are as more catastrophic as natural disaster
such as what happened in Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1991 and in Gulf of Mexico
by BP recently. ‘Nature doesn’t have a design problem, we do’ (McDonough and
Braungart suggest 2002)Because of all these negative human behaviors,
environmentalists and engineers invented the notion of green design. Consuming less and differently,
redesigning our life style so as to remain green by efficient use of earth
resources which means efficient green design, may be the only way to keep the
ecosystems work properly and cut down carbon emission. Below are the highlighted
arguments to that green design keeps the environment safe and sustains economy:1- Green design reduces and decreases the use of resources or will use
them efficiently, that is getting the same power or product by less use of the
resource. As McDonough and Braungart suggest (2002) ‘used resources should be recycled
by the notion of cradle to cradle’.
2- Occupant satisfaction can be
used as an argument because of the life cycle economic benefits.
3- In the green design, power generated by not using valuable and non-compensable
resources of the earth; for instance Solar and wind power could be used as
clean power production.
4- Giving positive results in research made by universities and companies
indicates that ‘In the Life Cycle Assessment, the green design works properly
on environmental and economic sustainability. Sustainability is on the agenda
of most organizations, and particularly cities’ (Peuportier, Thiers and
Guiavarch 2012).
5- Occupants of green buildings are much healthier than those in
conventional ones (publicservice.co.uk 2012)
6- A masonry brick in conventional buildings allows solar gains to be
stored, affecting in the heating and cooling load. While insulation materials
have a good role in consuming energy.
Nevertheless, like any other notion in the
world, adopting green design faces disagreements and obstacles. The most common
counter arguments of the notion have been counted below:First; the profit based industries in the world
do not like the change idea generally, because it needs new learning and hiring
someone to teach employees how that new technology does or process works.
Another major problem against adopting green building design is because it
lasts for long time which affects the construction market. And most of the
profit based industries do not care of environment and saving the planet. McDonough
and Braungart (2002) suggest to ‘give a motto to the industrial revolution, it
is a joke but it visualizes the reality “If the brute force doesn’t work, you
are not using enough of it”’.Second: Green design cannot solve the problem
of Overcrowded countries such as Far East and southern countries of Asia are
suffering from the uncontrolled population growth. More people mean more food,
consequently leads to more in everything including land use and food
transporting problems for instance).Third: It is not easy for many people to go off
the notion of the dream house, they cannot easily resist when they see and read
about a dream house in a magazine. Even if they care too much about the
environment and sustainability, they cannot build a green castle for instance.
Because green design does not mean bringing and using materials brought from
another planet. What should be mentioned in this point is that Architectures
such as Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, LE Carbusier and Walter Grupius have a great role
in the development of green design in buildings to be an international style.Forth counter argument is Technology; using lots
of technology may not assist green design idea in buildings, industries and transportation
for example. because as Tony FRI argues (2008) ‘In this respect, all technology
is immersive. Certainly there are no visions of futures that are not
technologically inflected. The point here is to understand that less technology
is not necessarily anti-technology. We are already technological beings’ and he
continues to explain that there will be no survival without technology but
equally there will be any survival with too much of it. Using control system
for whole the building makes the building more power efficient and prevents
fire and huge damages to the buildings while using more technology runs counter
to environmental criteria.Fifth: Paul and
Taylor (2008) doubt if there would be any difference regarding occupants’
satisfaction between the green and conventional buildings, as they had stated
in their research ‘All aspects of comfort including aesthetic, serenity,
lighting, ventilation, acoustics and humidity, were not perceived differently
by the occupants of the two types of buildings’. The
best way to reduce negative impacts on environment is not adopting the
recycling process only, human mast start to dispose and produces less. It may
be true when environmentalists believe that the environment improvement ability
by green design has been exaggerated however what should be kept in mind is
that without applying this idea [green design] in most of the sectors and by
governments, what expected from it should not be too much even if the process
is hundred percent efficient, occupant satisfaction and social issues represent
another challenge. Strong M. who is a Canadian business man who co-initiated in
the 1992 Rio Earth summit, explains his attitude about the summit and explains
the countries’ representatives that they are lead of state but not real leaders
which means there are a lot of responsibilities that consumers should care to. ‘The
utilization of sustainable/green building strategies and practices offer a
unique opportunity to create environmentally sound and resource-efficient
buildings’ (Kubba 2010). The general
Eco-design idea may enter a new era of development because as Building Journal
states ‘there is intervention of a quite number of companies in to the
international eco-system protection process’ (2012). What to be sure about is
that there will be no ecosystem working properly with continuing with our
endless needs. Economic, financial profits and saving up money are what companies and people generally are seeking for. According to research, the green building up-front cost of construction is almost the same as for the spendthrift buildings while the (LCA) in the green building is very economic. Some authors and researchers may combine the calculations of energy with the Life Cycle Assessment so as to make a model for the LCA for the whole building. It is important to take the LCA in to consideration during the design face of the project. As (Peuportier) in (Peuportier, Thiers and Guiavarch 2012) shows, the European project Eco-housing defines an example set of sustainability objectives to elaborate a set of environmental issues to be studied. See table 1. A conventional building should be defined as an reference to compare the concept of the passive house, see fig 3,
 |
Table 1. List of considered sustainability issue
(Peuportier, Thiers and Guiavarch 2012)
|
A conventional building should be defined as an
reference to compare the concept of the passive house, see fig 3, this
reference is called the reference house which has the same geometric shape and
dimensions of the passive house but it corresponds technology to be economic
and eco-friendly house, consequently there are two types of houses to be
compared in researches (a passive house vs. reference house), each of these
types has been sub-divided in to economical and spendthrift. The comparison
could be seen in figures 1 and 2.
Reusing
and recycling wastes has another good economical point, doing such a process means
finding market to do recycling and reusing, here you are creating a movement in
the market and employing more people as it vanishes the pillars of hazardous
wastes. Figures 1 and 2 show that as the LCA longer as the green house negative
impact on the environment will be less.
Fig 1. LCA results, comparison of occupants’
behavior
From (EQUER) as showed
in (Peuportier, Thiers and Guiavarch 2012)
Fig 2. LCA results,
contribution of the life cycle stages
From (EQUER) as showed
in (Peuportier, Thiers and Guiavarch 2012)
Thinking twice before throwing problems for next
generations may be a wise idea while the human beings do not know how to manage
their problems so far. If people now are the victim of a very near past
generations bad use of resources, what about others who follow! They will
suffer from global warming problems more than the current generation in fact.
Fig. 3, An example
of passive house details
From Passive House
Institute-U.S.asshown in The New Yor Times (2010)
Why the green design should be efficient and
what are the effects on our life? What if we continue using natural resources
inefficiently? What’s at stake? UN’s world commission on environment and
development department (1987) warned in the report titled our common future ‘if we do not make more efforts for pollution
control, the health of human and environment would be threatened and urban life
would be unacceptable and unlivable’ we are living in 21st century,
more than two decades after the report [our common future] and there are no
tangible changes. Millions of barrels of oil which needed millions of years to
be created have been extracted from the earth core and burned in to gas,
hundreds of forests have been cutted out and thousands of unique species of
animals have been vanished. If not our
environment, our life is at stake in fact, most of us may not live the next
century, but next generation will face catastrophic disasters for sure. If you
are still reading these words, means you concern about the environment and you
know what the global warming means for sure. Most predictions show more severe
weather; hotter hot, cooler colds. A warmer atmosphere results rising in sea
level, damaging cities consequently, we may see cities such as Venice, and some
parts of Netherlands disappear in a near future. Thinking that earth and the
atmosphere absorb our wastes safely is wrong. The waste itself should be safe
and biodegradable, thus the ecosystem ingredients cannot transform the waste
from the level of unsafe to safe. What should be kept in mind that recycling
process means down cycling or lowering the quality of materials and resources
by time.
It is not easy to ask G8 countries, for
example, to stop polluting the environment by power production instantly which
is necessary for sustaining technology. This issue encourages eco-friendly
institute to accelerate in implementing the green design concepts. Since ninetieth
of 21st century, Wide range of corporate and institutional clients
has taken part in researches, architecture, industrial products, process and
urban designs. Ford motor Company, Herman Miller, Monsanto, Du Pont, Jonson and
Jonson, Nike and SC Jonson with many other municipalities and educational
institutions were among those to implement the green design principles. ‘When
you hear that a company like Du Pont has cut off cancer causing chemicals emissions
by almost 70 percent since 1987, you feel better’ (McDonough and Braungart
2002: 53).
Depending
on what have been written about green design in books, Journals and the
valuable academic websites, green design is efficient to keep environment safe
however it depends on in what range are the governments and organizations are
using it. As its clear in figures shown in this essay, the economical passive
house has less consumption of power for heating and cooling the space per meter
square, while all types of houses cost the same regarding construction,
renovation and demolition.
Soon or later, we have to recognize and look at
green design as the only path through social, economic and ecological sustainability
and to survive of course. For the next few decades it may be next to impossible
to compete in business without being eco-efficient and taking green design in
to consideration. Most of the industries should show full respect to the
materials and resources they are using, they have to use less first and then recycle.
‘The most basic, obvious and important action
just does not get a look-in – this is the need to eliminate the need for so
much energy! The starting point is demand reduction. Turn it off’ (Tony Fry
2008:186). The list of changes needed, is a long one.
