The green building mismatch

Last week the World Business Council on Sustainable Development published a study that looked at the mismatch between percieved costs and damage of green construction and real costs and damage.

The two key findings were that:

1. construction experts OVERestimated the added costs of green construction by 300%, but
2. significantly UNDERestimated the contribution of buildings to greenhouse gases.

No wonder they aren't building better. If only they realized this:

• It turns out that buildings are responsible for 40% of the greenhouse gas emissions on the planet.
• It also turns out that green building usually cost only an extra 5%.

While lots of blogs have summarized it, I found Joel Makower's at PlaNetizen's Radar to be the most useful. He pulled information that looks in detail at how different groups can be influenced to make better decisions about buildings and who can best be influencing them. He also talked some about getting market forces in line with the the behaviors that we all need to see.