from the ground up - The Tyee

Council for Sustainable Development were found tobelieve that green buildings cost an average of 17 percent more than conventional buildings.But there’s another question to be asked: Did Vancouver’ssignature green projects run over budgetbecause of sustainable design? Or did costs skyrocketbecause these megaprojects were spec’d by ambitiouspoliticians, built by loosely supervised public-privatepartnerships and rushed to completion at the peak of arecord-smashing real estate bubble?There’s evidence that green design does not influenceconstruction cost. A study that compared 221new buildings found no difference in cost between 83LEED buildings and 138 similar conventional buildings.“There is no significant difference in average costs forgreen buildings as compared to non-green buildings,”concluded Davis Langdon, the firm that conducted the2006 study, Cost of Green Revisited.The Davis Langdon study compared LEED librariesto non-LEED libraries, LEED community centres tonon-LEED community centres, LEED laboratories tonon-LEED laboratories, and so forth. The study found“no significant statistical difference” between theaverage costs per square foot for LEED versus conventionalbuildings.Developers who persist in thinking about green buildingthe same way they think about Sub Zero kitchens-- as something to be “added” on to a conventionallydesigned building -- will incur higher costs, the studywarned.“We continue to see project teams conceiving ofsustainable design as a separate feature. This leadsto the notion that green design is something that getsadded to a project -- therefore they must add cost,” theDavis Langdon study concluded. “Until design teamsunderstand that green design is not additive, it willbe difficult to overcome the notion that green designcosts more.”Myth #2: Green building materials must be imported.This notion appears to combine the misunderstandingthat green design is an additive feature with themisimpression that the preferred additions includeelements such as European plumbing, exotic plantsand tropical materials such as cork or bamboo.The truth is that none of the major green building certificationsystems require exotic materials, and severalactively discourage the use of such products.Granted, as recently as a decade ago, it was still difficultto obtain green fixtures such as efficient lightsor low-flow toilets. But that’s no longer the case.High-efficiency fixtures of all types are now availableat competitive prices in nearly every hardware store inNorth America.Likewise, some first generation green roofs didexperiment with exotic plants. But LEED and othercertification systems now reward the selection of nativeand locally adapted plants, as well as the use ofbuilding products manufactured within 500 miles ofthe construction site.Where forest products must be shipped from afar,most green building certification systems reward theuse of wood that is grown and harvested in certifiedforests. These policies create a competitive advantagefor Canadian wood products because Canada boastsmore hectares of certified forest than any other nation.Myth #3: Green buildings’ energy savings aremore hype than reality.Buildings account for up to half of energy use andconsume up to 72 per cent of electricity, according tostatistics compiled by the U.S. Energy InformationAdministration.Reducing the amount of energy used in buildings iswidely regarded as the cheapest and easiest way tolower dependency on fossil fuels and reduce emissionsof associated greenhouse gasses. (Green buildingmay also be among the few carbon reductionstrategies that create jobs in both the short and longterms.)But misperceptions and misleading claims aboutgreen building have left many with the impressionthat green buildings are not energy efficient.19