Green Building

What is Green Building?

Green building means many different things to different people -- it is a multifaceted concept that lends itself to many interpretations. There's energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. There are natural building concepts. There are social and community elements. All of these -- and more -- are important, and the full benefits of green building are realized only when all elements of the built environment are looked at holistically.

So, in order to provide as complete an understanding of green building as possible, we offer multiple descriptions from a variety of sources. In addition to our own definition of green building we have gathered information from numerous organizations and compiled their definitions here. Below are brief synopses of several of these definitions. At the end of each you will find a link to the corresponding website where you can learn more about each.

Last updated August 25, 2020