Building Design & Construction's White Paper on Sustainability

November 2003 supplement to Building Design & Construction (BD&C) magazine

Available as a free download from

www.bdcmag.com.

Released at Greenbuild 2003, the “White Paper on Sustainability” is notable for two reasons. First, it provides a very useful overview of the green building movement, including its history, current status, and potential future direction. The authors of this report spoke with dozens of participants and stakeholders in the industry and have done a laudable job of capturing many of the important trends and achievements. Second, it represents a new level of attention to—and interest in—green building by a mainstream building industry publication, and it recommends that that mainstream organizations pay even more attention.

The white paper packs a lot of information into its 48 pages (including a few ads from sponsors and underwriters, among which are the Wood Promotion Network and the Vinyl Institute). A lot of space is devoted to discussing the available information on the costs and benefits of green buildings. And results from a survey of

BD&C’s readers purport to show the level of interest and participation in green building by the building industry at large. (Unfortunately, the results may have been skewed by the self-selective nature of a group that chooses to complete an online survey.)

Inspired by the energy and enthusiasm of the U.S. Green Building Council’s 2002 conference in Austin, Texas, the editors of

BD&C spent much of the subsequent year researching the green building movement. Their perspective as outside observers who have invested some serious time working to understand the green building movement is invaluable, both to insiders who can benefit from seeing how they’re perceived by the rest of the industry, and to other organizations that are considering greater involvement in green building activities.

– NM