Later this month marks the 10th anniversary of World Green Building Week,1 an annual campaign to raise awareness of green buildings and their role in addressing climate change, creating sustainable and thriving communities and driving economic growth. This year’s theme, #BuildingLife, explores how we can create a green and healthy built environment globally and, for the first time, will focus on embodied emissions from the entire building lifecycle – including construction supply chains.
The World Green Building Council defines a green building as one that “in its design, construction or operation, reduces or eliminates negative impacts, and can create positive impacts on our climate and natural environment. Green buildings preserve precious natural resources and improve our quality of life.” There are a number of features that can help buildings to achieve this, including efficient energy and water use, the use of renewable energy, recycling, the use of materials that are non-toxic and ethical, and consideration of the environment in design, construction and operation.