How Much Does Green Building Really Cost?

HOW MUCH DOES GREEN BUILDING REALLY COST?

All the time, I hear people say— "green building is still too expensive to use on my project". When you actually break it down and explain the cost and environmental savings over the life of the product based on the time they will be in the house/ office etc. they seem to understand. I don't think we as a industry do a good enough job explaining that. I am always interested in the overall benefit of how something performs on my house, and usually it's a win/ win situation. I typically find, that while the green option is more expensive in most cases initially, it usually has a moderate to significant cost benefit long term. Some of the excerpts below were taken from an article written by the NDRC "National Resources Defense Council on the subject".

Green building skeptics sometimes argue that it's difficult or even impossible to build green without paying a big cost premium. But real-world examples show that you can complete a LEED-certified green building project for an average of 2 percent more in upfront costs, and sometimes even below standard market construction costs. Plus, any extra first costs you pay can be recovered through cost benefits over the life of the the product, fewer mechanical issues, and the benefit to the environment. And by making experienced green building professionals a part of your team and learning to control costs, you can escape paying any green premium at all as early as your second green building project.

A 2004 study by Davis Langdon Adamson, a construction cost-planning and management company, found that the first costs of constructing a sustainable building tend to match or only slightly exceed those of comparable non-green buildings. The study, Costing Green: A Comprehensive Cost Database and Budgeting Methodology, measured the square-foot construction costs of 61 buildings seeking certification under the LEED green building rating system against those of buildings of similar type that did not aim for sustainability. Taking into account a range of construction factors including climate, location, market conditions and local standards, the study found that for many of the green projects, pursuing LEED certification had little or no budgetary impact. 

The study's findings also underline that incorporating and integrating green features into a project early is critical to the success of any green building project. "It is the choices made during design which will ultimately determine whether a building can be sustainable, not the budget set," the report concluded. 

In addition, in order to accurately evaluate the impact of green building on your budget, it's important to look beyond first costs. Increasingly, architects and procurement specialists are using "life-cycle assessments" (LCA) to evaluate and quantify the economic and environmental costs and benefits of materials and products over their lives. LCA analysis methods are becoming more standardized and tools such as LCie are emerging to provide comparable product-level evaluations.

So, when planning your next project make sure you look at all factors that are in play, do a life cycle calculation, and use that in your next meeting with a potential home owner/ buyer. If you have your ducks in a row, you can use this as a sales tool, and think of how that might separate you from your competitors.

Photo Credit: Oakley Originals