What is Green Building? What are the Green Building Features?

What are the Green Building Features?

There is a common misconception that building green means incurring higher costs to protect the environment. In fact, green design is an excellent financial decision: It lowers a building's lifetime cost of ownership while reducing its environmental footprint. Some of the other fSome natural resources essential to our survival are rapidly depleting. Because of this situation, there are many more people focusing on green today. green buildings; It is also an important part of sustainable urban development aimed at combating climate change.

What is Green Building?

green building; It is a construction method that has less negative impact on the environment, produces healthier buildings with low maintenance costs, and uses resources efficiently. The term green building, also known as sustainable building, high performance building and green construction; used interchangeably to describe basically the same thing.

Features of green buildings can be listed as follows:

Air tightness and vapor barrier on building surfaces and walls; keeping moisture away, making the building cooler. In this way, electrical systems such as air conditioners work less to cool the building and reduce electricity costs.

Solar heat gain coefficient; is the amount of solar radiation that enters through glass and is released as heat inside a building. The less this amount, the less solar heat transmits, the cooler the building. This also reduces electricity costs.

A device called the enthalpy wheel recovers the cooled air inside and uses the coldness of this spent air to cool the fresh air coming from outside. This process also removes moisture from the outside air. This is a cost-effective way to improve indoor air quality and reduce the energy consumed by air conditioning systems.

Daylight-controlled lighting systems have sensors that can detect daylight. During the day, the sensor turns off the lights as there is enough light from the sun, and when the sun goes down, the system turns the lights back on. In this way, the use of artificial lighting during the day is reduced. It also prevents homeowners from forgetting to turn off the lights when they don't need it.

Occupancy sensors only turn on when they detect people in the room. This technology can also be found on escalators that only kick in when there are people to ride on them.

The latest faucets and siphon mechanisms use less water to do the same. Green structures capture rainwater and then store it in large containers. This water can then be used to irrigate plants, flush toilets or feed cooling towers.

Material recovery facility; It is the place where special and hazardous wastes that biodegrade, recycle or non-recyclable waste of buildings are separated. The resulting waste can be composted and used as fertilizer for the building's plants.

A significant part of the unpaved area of ​​green buildings is devoted to vegetation. This contributes to the reduction of the urban island effect, which is caused by the heat that concrete surfaces absorb and spread to the environment by absorbing the heat from the sun, which is very common in urban areas. Plants also help absorb some of the rainwater.

Design, construction and operational practices of green buildings; should have minimal impact on ecosystems and water resources. sustainable sites; protect natural habitat, reduce pollution and use of natural resources, and facilitate interaction with nature. Green construction is a broad topic and has many features. Here, much better results are achieved depending on the project conditions.

What are the Benefits of Green Building?

With new technologies continually being developed to complement existing practices to create greener buildings; The benefits of green buildings can be evaluated under three headings: environmental, economic and social benefits. By adopting green practices, we can maximize environmental and economic performance.

Green construction methods provide the most significant benefits when integrated with eco-friendly design and construction. The benefits of green building can be listed as follows:

  • Environmental Benefits
  • It reduces water and energy waste.
  • By protecting natural resources, it improves the quality of resources such as water and air.
  • It protects biodiversity and ecosystem.
  • It uses renewable energy sources such as solar energy.
  • It takes measures to reduce pollution and waste, as well as to reuse and recycle materials.
  • The materials used are non-toxic, ethical and sustainable.
  • The environment is taken into account in its design and construction and its adaptation to the changing environment is ensured.
  • Economic Benefits
  • It lowers costs and increases value.
  • Increases user productivity.
  • Green building is not just for the environment, but buildings that support healthier, happier and more productive lives.
    focuses on creating. These; This includes cost savings in electricity bills for tenants or households through energy and water efficiency.
  • It creates a market for other green products and services.
  • Green building operations promote material and water recycling and also generate returns for real estate investors.
  • Social Benefits
  • It increases the quality of life. 
  • In the design, construction and operation of green buildings; users' quality of life is taken into account.
  • It improves health and comfort.
  • It minimizes the load on the local structure.

Although the history of green buildings in Turkey is not very old, the green production trend that started rapidly in 2007 has brought Turkey to the forefront of the world real estate sector today. As a result of the awareness that developed with the establishment of the Environmentally Friendly Green Buildings Association (CEDBIK) in the same year, Turkey rose to the 6th place in the world with the number of green buildings. According to CEDBIK data, the number of certified green buildings reached 400 as of April 2019.

According to the information compiled from the American Green Building Council USGBC data, Turkey is among 150 countries; It is ranked 6th after Canada, China, India, Brazil and Korea.