Green Residential Real Estate is housing that lessens its environmental impact. The Jan/Feb 2010 issue of the ?Journal of Industrial Ecology states that four areas dominate and account for 70-80 percent of the environmental impact of individual households:transportation, diet, housing construction, and energy-using products.
So how can we lessen the environmental impact and live in a more sustainable way? Lets look at?housing construction which?is impacted?by the?manufacturing, transporting, and assembling of building materials, and the first place to start here is with the size.?It should be obvious that the?bigger the building, the more resources consumed, the greater the environmental impact. Big is not green, small is.
Even if we build a net zero energy house, a big one will require more materials to build and?more renewable energy to power energy using products such as appliances, lighting fixtures, and heating and cooling units, etc. Photovoltaics and other clean energy alternatives require manufacturing, transporting, and assembling just like any other material used to build. A?bigger house needs more. Big is not green, small is.
To be sure there are many other ways to lessen the environmental impact of housing. However, I think?size?should be?the first consideration. We have to stop building more than we need. Statistics from the U.S. Green Building Council show that buildings in the U.S. accounts for:
- 72% of electricity consumption
- 38% of all carbon dioxide emissions
- 40% of raw material use
The first step to shrinking these numbers is to build smaller houses. SMALL IS GREEN!
Tags: building small, energy efficiency, energy useage
Source: http://hocomusings.com/2012/12/what-is-green-residential-real-estate/
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