ACP Pubs

Steve Hudson

Is Green Good For The Green?
March 27, 2008

Though Saint Patrick’s Day 2008 is now a thing of the past, “green” continues to be a key word on the construction scene. Case in point: the city of Chamblee, Ga., recently became the first municipality in the United States to formally recognize the Green Building Initiative’s (GBI) Green Globes environmental assessment and rating system.

Chamblee’s City Council voted unanimously in favor of the idea. The result: Beginning April 1, 2009, in Chamblee, all new construction projects of more than 20,000 square feet and all new municipal buildings, regardless of size, must be recognized by either the GBI’s Green Globes system or the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED system.

According to a release from the Green Building Initiative Chamblee's legislation makes the Atlanta suburb the first in the state of Georgia, as well as the first in the entire Southeast region of the U.S., to require private development projects to meet green building standards.

“We congratulate the progressive leadership of Chamblee, particularly the mayor and members of its city council, for taking a leadership role in the improvement of our built environment,” noted Ward Hubbell, president of the GBI. “Policies like Chamblee’s demonstrate that multiple options geared to mainstream design and building professionals can be used to encourage the accelerated adoption of green building practices.”

Over at city hall, they’re enthusiastic about it too.

“We’re very proud to be the first city in the state of Georgia to require private development projects to meet green building standards,” said Chamblee City Councilman Mark Wedge. “We’ve seen first-hand the effects of climate change this year in the South, so we’re extremely motivated to achieve results quickly. We believe that giving people choice in terms of how they approach green building, through systems such as Green Globes, will help local builders and architects contribute more substantially to the energy efficiency and general sustainability of our built environment.”

So “green” is definitely in. But is everybody into green? I heard a contractor the other day questioning whether it makes business sense in the long run.

Here’s what he was asking: does “green” make sense for the “green”?

I know that, across the construction community, there are varying views on the subject. What are yours?

Posted by Steve Hudson on March 27, 2008 | Comments (0)