Thomas Friedman preaches in his recent book, Flat Hot and Crowded, that right now America is having a green party, not a green revolution. And it’s true – Europe is leaps ahead of the US when it comes to green building practices. So how do we get to where we need to be?
Taking a cue from the report UK Green Building Council released today, “Biodiversity and the Built Environment,” a greater shift in the way we think about building is the first step.
As stated in an article from the UK’s foremost construction magazine, Building:
Paul King, chief executive of UKGBC, said that thinking about the environment and building should be inverted: “All too often our mindset is simply to reduce the negative impacts from construction and development. But it’s important to think about how we can actually increase positive impacts – for people, wildlife and the economy.”
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So how can builders make the change?
According to the report:
- Improving staff training and communication
- Recommendations to improve green building codes and standards to better incorporate assessment of biodiversity
- Advice for industry, and for local and central government, on how to improve the consistency of biodiversity measurement and reporting
Green building products like green roofs, living walls, as well as building practices like landscape architecture, parks and urban gardens can all help make a positive impact.
In America, education is number one – Manufacturers and associations in the building industry have an opportunity to develop more powerful awareness campaigns around the benefits of incorporating natural environments into deign build practices. Now take that as a challenge.
Read UK’s Building magazine’s full article.
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Tags: Biodiversity, Building Magazine, Green Roofs, Hot Flat and Crowded, MetaEfficient, Thomas Friedman, UKGBC