Photo: surplusparts

The green building movement is starting to make serious progress, with individuals, governmental entities and developers choosing eco-friendly construction options, an environmental publication reported in its latest issue. 

Cities around the country, including San Francisco, are instituting laws that new public buildings be green. And 5 percent of new commercial construction today meets standards set by the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design program (LEED), a voluntary standard for developing high-performance, sustainable buildings, E - The Environmental Magazine reported in its January/February 2007 issue. 

Eco-friendly construction is on the rise, from single-family houses and planned communities to schools, hospitals and other large built environments. Ten percent of new homes satisfy the federal government’s Energy Star guidelines, meaning they’re nearly one-third more energy-efficient than regulations require, according to the report.

Still, considering that U.S. buildings put out about a third of the country’s greenhouse gasses, at the rate green building is penetrating the market today, it will be many years before emissions can be cut by the 70 percent thought necessary to stabilize global climate, Ed Moss, the magazine’s publisher, said.

A number of cities around the country, including San Francisco (and neighboring Pleasanton, Berkeley and San Mateo), Boston, Seattle and Scottsdale, Arizona, are leading the way with laws that require new public buildings be green.

But we’re not exactly home free yet. Obstacles abound, Moss said. Part of the problem is the resistance to change and refusal by some professionals to learn new methods. And the technology will continue to cost more until economies of scale are realized.

And there are doubters, Moss said. Some question whether the term “green building” is too easily co-opted for marketing purposes. Some builders, they charge, do little more than erect townhouses that increase urban density rather than build energy-efficient products that are truly lighter on the land. Critics wonder whether efficiency standards, when applied, can be objectively proven to deliver desired results — such as lower electric bills. Historic preservationists bristle at a perceived bias toward new edifices thrown up at the expense of older buildings that could instead be sustainably retrofitted while maintaining the character of a community.

What do you think? Are we making serious progress, or is eco-friendly building merely becoming fashionable?