How to Build an Eco-Friendly Building
As industrialization continues to expand, increasing pressure is placed on businesses to reduce their carbon footprints and become more environmentally conscious. This responsibility has given rise to the eco-friendly building, a design strategy that promotes recycling and sustainability in an attempt to leave a positive impact on the surrounding environment.
Wondering how to build an eco-friendly building and the benefits of eco-friendly building? Check out these five methods that many companies are already using.
Use Wind Power to Make Your Building Eco-Friendly
The great thing about wind is that it costs nothing to manufacture, is abundant, and can provide a renewable energy source for green-focused buildings. By catching the wind’s power, windmills can convert that power into usable energy that can provide your building with electricity. Windmills also help businesses to reduce the production of greenhouse gases.
Turn to Solar Energy
If wind power isn’t a practical option for your building, there’s another renewable energy source that’s been powering the world’s greenest machines for millions of years: the sun.
Similar to how windmills are used to convert wind power into electricity, solar panels allow engineers to convert solar energy from the sun into electrical energy that can be used to power anything from lights to small electronics and even entire buildings.
What’s even better is that a building’s most underused area, the roof, is also the ideal spot to install solar panels. However, if the roof of your building doesn’t get enough sunlight during the day, solar panels can be installed elsewhere and then have the electricity sent to your building.
Recycle Rain Water
Some innovative architects have been able to use rainwater to reduce a building’s need to rely on city water. Collection reservoirs placed on the roof can channel water through filtration systems to help cool the building or to use it to flush the toilets. This same water would otherwise likely pool on the roof or around the building, only to be evaporated by the sun.
By recycling the water in this way, the building can use the rainwater instead of it potentially going to waste.
Turn a Portion of Your Building Green
Dedicating space in your building to promote plant life is a terrific way to build an eco-friendly building. This can be as simple as installing a rooftop garden or as drastic and eye catching as a green wall.
By making your building more hospitable for plants, you’ll help to increase the production of oxygen in the area and also keeping your building cooler, in the case of rooftop vegetation, than a concrete rooftop.
Use Recycled and Sustainable Materials
One of the easiest ways to build an eco-friendly building is to use recycled and sustainable materials during the construction stage. By using recycled concrete, steel, and other materials, your future building is helping to reduce the amount of waste and pollution normally created during the manufacturing stage of these products. You’ll also be reducing the use of non-renewable resources.
High-density polyethylene (HDPE), for example, is one popular material made from recycled materials and is itself recyclable. HDPE is also easy to clean, helping to reduce the need for harmful cleaning products or excessive water. Since the material is colored throughout, no painting or repainting is necessary, helping to improve indoor air quality.
Use one or all of these tactics when building your eco-friendly building.
To learn more about HDPE materials and how to use them within your building, contact us at Scranton Products.
