The Challenge to Greener cities

There was a great progress in building sustainability and energy efficiency for the last 25 years[1]. The environmentalist and innovators are pushing this change from investors, to AEC[2] professionals and occupants. However, the goals they have set in mind is hardly reachable now: sustainability at city level. Newest, modern and high impact buildings are following the latest methods and technologies but small buildings, existing buildings, residential and non-residential consume a large amount of energy and generate more waste than they should.
Based on a survey from professionals of the industry in multiple countries we have identified the source:

Buildings must be designed/ built/ maintained/ and retro-fitted to reduce operating costs.

​This is a paradigm shift from reducing initial cost to reducing the life-cycle cost of a construction. An increment of 5% to the initial investment of a building generate at least 25% reduction in operating cost. Considering the always increasing cost of utilities (water, electricity, and natural gas) and that most buildings lifespan is of 30 years, there is no doubt of the advantage of sustainability without talking about the benefits for our health and the planet.
Experts of the field are struggling everyday for this cause and are not satisfied with the results, the reasons why are:

• Most Investors don’t want to invest more in a construction; and
• Most Buyers/ renters are looking for lowest prices

Most people do not recognize the benefits of sustainability and energy efficient constructions. We believe that first steps to improve this are:

1. Educate masses about sustainability;
2. Promote sustainability as interdisciplinary goals for engineers and architects
3. Encourage construction workers  to produce quality work
4. Enforce norms/ standards: some countries construction practices do not follow their standard for the benefit of reducing construction cost. This open doors to bad quality works and corruption (charging 2tons of insulation when only using 1ton).

Resulting from the global cultural change the construction investors would see that the market is asking for green buildings and will finance sustainable projects.

​Special thanks to the various professionals whom share their opinions about the building industry challenges. This article launches a series of articles which aim to educate the masses about  benefits of sustainability.

Please share your opinion below, your participation means a lot to us.

Recommended additional content:

• Millennials are looking for energy efficient homes
  
• We spent most of our life indoors
  
• The importance of the energy efficiency of buildings
  
• Life cycle costing for construction projects
• The incorporation of sustainability into the real estate investment portfolio
  
• Retrofitting existing buildings for performance and sustainability
  

References:

• Definition for AEC, IMSCAD, http://www.imscadglobal.com/industries-AEC.php
• Cover image, Eco-cities of the future, https://www.urenio.org/2011/01/31/sustainable-cities-oxymoron-or-the-shape-of-the-future/

[1] The U.S. Green Building Council was founded in 1993, it is a membership-based non-profit organization that promotes sustainability in building design, construction, and operation.
[2] The architecture, engineering and construction (AEC) industry consists of separate players who work together to bring a project to fruition.