Green Buildings: Advantages and Disadvantages

Green buildings have many benefits and have a great impact on the environmental, economic, and social levels.
The design of the building depends on the use of renewable energy as well as bio-resources and recyclable or renewable materials.
And the benefits of these buildings on the social level are numerous, sustainable buildings improve the quality of the environment and life by enhancing the health and comfort of the people around them due to the use of sound and heat insulation techniques and improving the management of lighting and energy.

What are green buildings?

They are the future of buildings and that is for sure. Green buildings are the ones who are good to the environment in addition to being resource-efficient throughout their life cycle.

Most countries now are adopting green building concepts and other countries are on their way to join the flock too. On a smaller scale, individuals and investors have been increasingly interested in self-sustaining homes and buildings.

But why are countries all over the world interested in green buildings?

Advantages of green buildings

1- Cost:

The construction costs are the same as a standard building and sometimes they cost a little bit more as they require special materials to be built. However, regular building costs won’t stop after its construction since money will always be spent on maintenance, renovation, operation, or even demolition.

This doesn’t mean that green buildings won’t need maintenance, renovation, operation, or even demolition as well, but is built of natural resources all that re-doing stuff will take ages till done as they are not damaged that fast hence, investing in green building is 10 times more profitable than standard ones.

2- Efficiency:

This here is divided into the following:-

A- Water efficiency:

Green buildings don’t know the meaning of “wasted”, they recycle rainwater and greywater and use them for toilet flushing for instance.

B- Energy Efficiency:

These buildings save energy more than those built out of bricks. They only depend on all renewable energy resources such as solar power, hydro-power, and wind power which are used for heat and electricity and help improve the indoor air quality.

C- Material Efficiency:

Green buildings are built from natural, non-toxic and recycled materials that don’t cost much and Eco-friendly such as bamboo, straw, recycled metal or concrete..etc.

3- Preserving infrastructure:

Being efficient in both energy and water supply, these buildings stretch the capacity of local infrastructure greatly.

4- High ROI rates:

Considering that these buildings are all-natural, they have a huge return on investment rates and properties in these buildings sell at high prices.

But as we all know nothing all sweet and perfect. Green buildings have their flaws too and to sum them up, they are as follows:-

Disadvantages of green buildings

1- Location:

Since these buildings depend on the sun for energy, they need to be located in a position that will have the best sun exposure which may demand placing them opposite to other neighborhood homes.

2- Availability:

The materials to build such buildings can be hard to find especially in urban areas where preserving the environment is not the people’s first option.

So shipping these materials can then cost a lot than a standard building.

3- No air cooling features:

These buildings run on heat to generate power, so they are not designed for hot areas as they do not have any ventilation systems, so air conditioners will be required which will make these buildings anything but Eco-friendly.

4- A long time to construct:

Buildings require a longer time to be built and designed: Green building designs adopt a special method that takes into account the surrounding environmental conditions.

5- The cost of construction:

This is because at the present time the construction of green buildings requires a greater cost than regular buildings because they depend on a lot of natural materials, which may not be available at all times and places.

So, to build or not to build green buildings?

After clarifying the advantages and disadvantages of green buildings, we can now say that it is a practical idea that can be implemented in many places and countries, due to its many benefits, taking into account the shortcomings of its construction in terms of the availability of certain environmental conditions, building materials, etc., but we cannot rely on it mainly as a basic solution to the housing problem in many places.