ABSTRACT
Current green building practice suffers from disconnects between the owner/occupier desires and perceptions; the actual means and methods used to construct a building; and the environmental impacts during use. While U.S. market transformation toward green building has occurred utilizing a dollar-value-installed equation, life-cycle effects relating to raw material production (cradle-to-use phase), construction means, and end-use energy savings have largely been ignored. This chapter focuses on the discussion on life-cycle emissions and green buildings from three perspectives that include the primary material production, construction means and methods, and occupied phases of a building’s life-cycle. The three perspectives are: (1) emissions/environmental harm from material manufacturing for the construction phase, (2) emissions/environmental harm from equipment/processes during the construction phase, (3) emission/environmental harm from the completed building (post construction).
