A lot of emphasis is put on producing green structures these days; most government and corporate buildings are designed with the aim of conserving energy and other resources and making them eco-friendly.
This gives rise to an obvious question: Do green buildings really live up to the expectations?
Sadly, we cannot give an emphatic ‘yes’ for the answer.
Yes, there are buildings that have succeeded in cutting down on their energy consumption. There are buildings that have a good track record in resource conservation and waste reduction. However, this cannot be said of the green buildings in general; most of the much touted about structures fall short of their potential by quite some distance.
And the reason?
No, the designers did not fail in their mission to make the planet greener and safer; the technology did not fail to deliver; the very concept of sustainable architecture is not a failure either.
The fact is, it’s one thing to have green buildings, quite another to have people with green behavior.
We concluded our previous post by stating- everything depends on our will to make our buildings, our planet greener. Yes, if we don’t learn to be green in our behavior, no technology is going to help us. So while design features and technologies play their part in making buildings green, only the users can actually help them perform up to the expectations.
Green behavior:
There is no secret to how you can possess a green behavior; we actually know just about everything about it. Switch off the lights when leaving the room; use air-conditioners only when you really need them; make maximum use of daylight; make it a habit to use stairs instead of elevators; minimize the use of electrical dryers if you can dry clothes on a line outside; use energy efficient appliances; walk or ride bicycles; and so on. Do we really practice what we know?
Automation and using sensors certainly help; however, it gets very difficult for a building to perform up to its full potential if the users don’t cooperate. We must know our buildings and accordingly adjust our behavior to make them greener. What can technology do if you leave water running or do not turn off your computer and peripherals before you call it a day? We need to be green if we want to keep our structures, our surroundings green.
Green attributes:
Before moving on to a different topic in our next post, let us discuss some attributes of green personal behavior. These attributes help us contribute towards a greener world, a less toxic world.
- Keeping yourself self motivated:
You must possess a desire to be a champion of natural resources. Save them, don’t waste them.
- Inculcating green habits:
Green habits often don’t come naturally, you must be ready to embrace them and make them a second nature. Conserve water, don’t waste energy resources, desist from using private transport as far as possible, and so on.
- Do not exult in generating waste:
Minimizing waste generation is another attribute of green behavior. Recycling water and things like paper etc and using apt technology can help us keeping our earth lighter and cleaner.
Humans are resistant to change; we hesitate in moving out of our comfort zone, in changing our habits. But going green is inevitable, we are left with no other choice. Green personal behavior is the answer to so many problems plaguing us. Come, let us change ourselves for the better!
Sources:
https://www.emerald.com › … › Volume 20 Issue 6
https://www.frontiersin.org › fpsyg.2022.906869 › full
https://indjst.org › articles › the-green-behaviour-role-in-…
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Factual-and-conceptual-green-building-knowledge-This-diagram-shows-the-many-ways-that_fig2_333467982
https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Principles-governing-the-application-of-Green-characteristics-in-building-construction_fig4_364225604
https://esub.com/blog/green-construction-the-future/
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sandeep Singh is an architect from IIT Roorkee.
Ten years after graduating, he lost his vision to genetic Diabetes.
He reinvented his career and turned writer.
He has authored two fiction books and writes blogs on
Architecture, Outsourcing, Safety and a variety of other
subjects for different organizations. He also chairs and runs two NGOs