Editor's note: The following article was adapted from the paper “Busting the Myth That Green Costs More Green,” presented during HPAC Engineering's sixth annual Engineering Green Buildings Conference and Expo, held Sept. 24 and 25 in Nashville, Tenn. The paper is available at www.ssrcx.com/Publications/Articles/Green_Cost_More_Green.pdf.

In the building-design and construction industry, “green” strategies and techniques commonly are believed to add significant cost to budgets. In fact, a Building Design+Construction magazine survey¹ puts the percentage of architecture, engineering, and construction firms believing green building costs more than traditional methods of design and construction at 85, with 41 percent of those firms believing green building costs at least 11 percent more (Figure 1). A Davis Langdon study,² however, found “no significant difference in average costs for green buildings as compared to non-green buildings,” while independent studies by the State of California³ and the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)⁴ indicate cost premiums are minimal. With about 90 percent of the total cost of building ownership coming in the form of operation and maintenance — two areas in which designing for certification under the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC's) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System can save enormously — any additional costs for building green are recouped in one to two years on average, with exponential cost savings — cost savings that leave traditional construction far behind — thereafter.

This article examines available research on the cost of green buildings and explores sources of the misconception green buildings cost more than conventional buildings.

FIGURE 1. Market perceptions of green-building costs.

SOURCES OF MISCONCEPTION

The misconception green buildings cost more than conventional buildings stems in part from a lack of project experience. Despite approximately 50-percent annual growth in the number of projects for which LEED certification is sought, the percentage of new-construction projects registered in the United States is only about 10. What's more, many project teams pursue certification utilizing an antiquated approach to building programming and budget analysis.

“We continue to see project teams conceiving of sustainable design as a separate feature,” the authors of the Davis Langdon study² say. “This leads to the notion that green design is something that gets added to a project — therefore, they must add cost. This tendency is especially true for less-experienced teams that are confronting higher levels of LEED certification (Gold and Platinum).”

Sustainability is a programming issue and must be addressed before budgets are established, an approach that enables project teams to apply a holistic and integrated design methodology (see sidebar “Collaboration Is Key”).