REDUCING THE COST OF GREEN

INTRODUCTION

There is a general perception that building green will cost more. Here, we want to examine to what extent this is true, what are the factors influencing increased costs, and, perhaps most important, look for ways of controlling these costs. A few studies have tracked the cost of LEED Certified buildings in the last few years, and the general finding as well as the consensus is that a LEED Certified building does not involve significantly more cost, whereas LEED Silver, Gold, and Platinum designations do—the higher the certification achieved, the greater the extra cost. The average additional costs seem to be in the range of 2–5% for Silver, 5–10% for Gold, and 10% or more for Platinum. However, at the individual project level the answer is not quite so simple. Most of us have been involved in, or know of, projects that abandoned the quest for green recognition because of budget restraints. However, as green building becomes increasingly popular, there are numerous ways to achieve the most sustainability while keeping costs within feasible boundaries.