What does it take for a building to qualify as ‘green’?

A key component of green architecture is a building’s ability to save energy. It is estimated that over 70 per cent of the world’s energy is consumed in our homes. This is more than the amount of energy consumed by the transport and industrial sectors. This contributes to more than two thirds of carbon emissions, which are the single largest contributors to global warming.

According to UN-Habitat, the way we design our homes can to a large extent impact on energy generation, consumption and saving.

“It is essential to adopt urban-planning and building-design methodologies that are energy-conscious and environmentally-friendly,” states the UN Habitat Urban Energy Unit’s newsletter.

It notes that for a building to truly be “green”, it should meet at least four parameters: optimise energy efficiency, have little demand for energy, an efficient energy supply, and the ability to maximise its share of renewable energy sources.

Using these criteria, a green building is basically one that minimises heat gain while allowing for natural cooling mechanisms. In addition, it ought to incorporate an elaborate solid-waste-management system. Using locally available materials as well as rainwater harvesting are other key components of green architecture.

The importance of green architecture gained impetus when the Green Building Award category was added to the Energy Management Awards last year. Unfortunately, green architecture has lagged behind due to the notion that it is expensive. Experts say all that is required to keep the costs low is for the ideas to be incorporated in the initial planning phase of a development. In any case, they say, home construction is a long-term investment and any seemingly high costs will be leveraged through lower utility costs.

Kenya has few trained green architecture professionals despite the sheer number of developments that claim to have gone the energy efficiency way. In a previous interview with this writer, Kimeu Musau, a leading environmental design expert, said it would be wrong to label a development as having all the requisite components of a green building when the contrary is true.

“Lack of expertise in environmental design is largely to blame for the slow progress in green architecture. Labelling a project green without the requisite components may result in misinformation to the general public. Such faulty classifications may end up lowering the requirements of green design, since many developers may inadvertently use them as examples of sustainable architecture,” said Musau.

While Musau says that it may not be possible to have a project team made of professionals in green technology, there still ought to be one or two part-time consultants to give overall direction.