5 Green Building Solutions: 2024 Trends and Innovations
5 Green Building Solutions for 2024
From the Baroque architecture of the 17th century to the modernist creations of the 20th century, the evolution of building designs is a blend of artistry and functionality.
When creating a building, one must consider the construction costs of raw materials and labor. However, now, as the global concern over climate change becomes more urgent, there's been a significant shift in the construction industry toward more eco-friendly buildings. To a degree, these eco-buildings are defined by the design and layout, but many go further, incorporating green building solutions to cut carbon emissions and lower energy costs.
Below, you'll find a guide to this year's most innovative green building solutions. It explains how they promote sustainability, especially in light of growing legislative efforts to enforce energy efficiency.
What Is Green Building?
Calling a building green has nothing to do with the shade of its exterior. It has everything to do with its construction, and how it capitalizes on innovative green building solutions to reduce its environmental impact.
Sometimes these solutions leverage sources of renewable energy, like solar or wind power. However, they also come by using advanced building methods such as avoiding the use of toxic or harmful materials or designing lighting in ways that lower a building's utility usage.
One of the main principles behind green building ideas and solutions is that it's a multi-faceted approach, accounting for factors like:
Development Site: Prioritizes building on previously developed land, rather than undeveloped land.
Low Utility Usage: Uses solutions like low-flow toilets, greywater irrigation systems, and efficient HVACs.
Waste Reduction: Uses as many recyclable and non-toxic materials as possible.
5 Innovative Green Building Solutions for 2024
Perhaps you're considering building in green, but don't know where to begin. As you consider sustainable building construction of your eco building, keep the following solutions in mind. Each one offers different ways to support sustainability efforts, lower utility costs and promote healthier, more productive environments.
1. Smart Building Automation
Smart building analytics are more than automated light switches to turn off lights after sensing a room is unoccupied. Automated building solutions, when paired with smart IoT sensors, actively gather data in real-time, to make every system and appliance in a building more efficient over time, such as:
Plumbing
HVAC
Ventilation
Lighting
These automation tools adjust appliance usage to max out energy efficiency to reduce waste while generating reports that building managers can access. From there, they can identify trends to address issues that result in truly high-performance buildings.
2. High-Efficiency HVAC Systems
Heating alone accounts for about 30% of a given utility bill, and implementing a smart HVAC system can reduce those costs dramatically.
Efficiency is measured by the device's annual fuel utilization efficiency (AFUE) rating. This number indicates the percentage of energy used that actually goes to heating or cooling a home or building as opposed to being wasted.
An HVAC system with an AFUE rating above 90% is considered high efficiency, and the Department of Energy claims that investing in one can reduce heating costs by upward of 50%.
3. Recycled and Sustainable Building Materials
Construction materials often bear a negative environmental impact. However, modern construction solutions promote the use of new, more sustainable materials whenever possible:
Bamboo
Reclaimed Wood or Steel
Rammed Earth
Precast Concrete
Mycelium
As an added benefit, many of these environmentally responsible building options yield cost benefits, whether by tax breaks, higher durability, or lower raw material prices.
4. Cool Roofs and Solar Panels
Cool roofs use materials, like stone, tile, or metal, that reflect more light than traditional roofing methods, like shingles. The outcome can significantly lower the temperature of a building, which can result in up to 15% less energy usage.
Solar panels use technology to harness the sun's power and capture it to later power key appliances and systems, further distancing buildings from fossil fuel usage and reducing carbon footprints by up to 33%.
5. Energy-Efficient Lighting Solutions
Lighting is responsible for about 6% of the total electrical consumption in the United States. Thankfully, there are technological innovations to reduce power usage, like compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs). CFLs use about 75% less energy and last up to 10 times longer compared to incandescent lighting. It's also wise to implement automated dimming systems that control lighting based on a room's natural lighting, further reducing energy usage.
However, before construction ever begins it's also important to consider how the architecture itself can capture the most natural light, which diminishes the reliance on electric bulbs.
How Building Owners Can Overcome Sustainability Challenges
Building owners play a crucial role in implementing strategic approaches to support sustainability. However, making the transition has financial and operational challenges.
When mapping out a green building strategy remember that it's a gradual process, and doesn't have to be an extreme shift. It requires consistent thought and intentional investments over the long term to keep in line with growing green building standards and regulations.
So where should building owners begin acquiring sustainability? One of the easiest and most immediate first steps toward sustainability is implementing automated building technology systems that can analyze and diagnose issues, offering real-time data and solutions to address a range of energy concerns, major and minor.
Smart, Sustainable, Future-Ready: Attune
When it comes to green solutions for buildings, it's hard to find a more agile and sleek application than Attune's IoT hardware and software package that fits seamlessly into any building's existing infrastructure. Of course, commercial building sustainability plans look different depending on the unique circumstances, but installing IoT sensors is the first and most effective way to identify issues.
If you're interested in taking a leap toward sustainable building construction, consider scheduling a demo. We'll be happy to show you how Attune's solutions can decrease energy costs, reduce carbon footprints, and lock in sustainability efforts as you seek to ready your property for the future.
