Greentech Lead America: A large number of building
companies in the U.S. remain committed to constructing green buildings,
according to a recent survey findings revealed by Turner Construction Company.
While executives remained committed to incorporating
sustainable building practices into their building programs, fewer said their
companies were likely to seek LEED certification from the US Green
Building Council when constructing a Green building.
Among real estate owners, developers, and corporate
owner-occupants, 64 percent said they expect to undertake new construction
projects over the next 12 months (up from 46 percent in the 2010 survey), and
71 percent said they expect to undertake renovation projects over the same
period (up from 58 percent in the 2010 survey).
Ninety percent of respondents said their companies were
committed to environmentally-sustainable practices. Of that percentage, 56
percent of executives said their companies were extremely or very committed to
following environmentally-sustainable practices in their operations, while an
additional 34 percent said they were somewhat committed.
Reducing Energy Costs and Operating Expenses are the Key
Drivers to Green Construction
Executives were most likely to cite financial factors as being important to
their companies’ decisions on whether to incorporate Green features in a
construction project. Respondents indicated that energy
efficiency (84 percent) and ongoing operations and maintenance
costs (84 percent) were extremely or very important to their decisions.
More than two-thirds of executives also said that
non-financial factors were extremely or very important including indoor
air quality (74 percent), health and well-being of occupants (74
percent),satisfaction of employees/occupants (69 percent)
and employee productivity (67 percent). However, only 37 percent of
executives said it was extremely or very important to their companies to
minimize the carbon footprint of their buildings.
This suggests that the decision to incorporate Green
features is driven by a desire to reduce cost followed by an interest to
improve the indoor environment for building occupants, rather than broader
concerns about the impact of buildings on the global environment, the survey
said.
More than half of executives said their companies would
be extremely or very likely to invest in improved indoor environmental quality
(63 percent), improved water efficiency (57 percent), and Green materials (53 percent)
if they were undertaking a construction project.
Although the vast majority of companies remain committed
to Green buildings, the percentage of executives who thought it was extremely
or very likely that their company would seek LEED certification if they
constructed a Green building was only 48 percent, down from 53 percent in the
2010 survey and 61 percent in the 2008 survey.
It is apparent that in the last four years many companies
seem to have become more knowledgeable about the means and methods of designing
and constructing Green buildings and are less reliant on LEED as a checklist or
a scorecard, as indicated by 52 percent of executives saying that they were
only somewhat or not likely to seek LEED certification when undertaking a
construction project.