Most people assume green building is expensive. An interesting post about a recent study published by Good Energies, a global energy efficiency and renewable energy investment company, shows some surprising conclusions about green building costs:

 On average, the public perceives the additional costs to build green at about 17%

In reality, the median additional costs for building green proved to be less than 2%

Over half of the buildings studied had a green building payback period of less than five years from energy and water savings alone (let’s put that another way: a five year payback is a 20% return on investment. Where else can you find an investment which will pay 20%, year after year, forever?)

Up front infrastructure development costs in “conservation developments” can be reduced by 25%, or approximately $10,000 per home.

The built environment has a profound impact on the economy and the earth. If you haven’t checked out the website of our client, Serious Materials lately, click on over for some interesting facts on the built environment: 

“The ‘built environment’ is responsible for 52% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide – which compares to only 9% for cars and light trucks. We can slash that number by re-engineering common products that use or lose the most energy. And local plants will create thousands of green-collar jobs here in the U.S., further reducing carbon footprints.”

With the economic outlook for 2009 looking just as gloomy as the latter part of 2008, it does seem like a lousy time to be touting construction and the like.  But while some industries may be looking for a bailout, green building is on the rise. And that’s not just good for the environment. It makes economic sense too.

Written by Tory Klaubo Patrick

Last 3 posts by Tory Klaubo Patrick

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Tags: built environment, carbon footprint, Cleantech, cleantech, green, Green Building, Green PR, Serious Materials

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 8th, 2009 at 12:49 pm and is filed under Cleantech, Green PR. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.