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A comprehensive review on green buildings research: bibliometric analysis during 1998–2018

• Environmental Concerns and Pollution control in the Context of Developing Countries
• Published: 16 February 2021
• Volume 28 , pages 46196–46214, ( 2021 )

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• Li Ying 1 , 2 ,
• Rong Yanyu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-0722-8510 1 , 3 ,
• Umme Marium Ahmad 1 ,
• Wang Xiaotong 1 , 3 ,
• Zuo Jian 4 &
• Mao Guozhu 1 , 3  

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Buildings account for nearly 2/5ths of global energy expenditure. Due to this figure, the 90s witnessed the rise of green buildings (GBs) that were designed with the purpose of lowering the demand for energy, water, and materials resources while enhancing environmental protection efforts and human well-being over time. This paper examines recent studies and technologies related to the design, construction, and overall operation of GBs and determines potential future research directions in this area of study. This global review of green building development in the last two decades is conducted through bibliometric analysis on the Web of Science, via the Science Citation Index and Social Sciences Citation Index databases. Publication performance, countries’ characteristics, and identification of key areas of green building development and popular technologies were conducted via social network analysis, big data method, and S-curve predictions. A total of 5246 articles were evaluated on the basis of subject categories, journals’ performance, general publication outputs, and other publication characteristics. Further analysis was made on dominant issues through keyword co-occurrence, green building technologies by patent analysis, and S-curve predictions. The USA, China, and the UK are ranked the top three countries where the majority of publications come from. Australia and China had the closest relationship in the global network cooperation. Global trends of the top 5 countries showed different country characteristics. China had a steady and consistent growth in green building publications each year. The total publications on different cities had a high correlation with cities’ GDP by Baidu Search Index. Also, barriers and contradictions such as cost, occupant comfort, and energy consumption were discussed in developed and developing countries. Green buildings, sustainability, and energy efficiency were the top three hotspots identified through the whole research period by the cluster analysis. Additionally, green building energy technologies, including building structures, materials, and energy systems, were the most prevalent technologies of interest determined by the Derwent Innovations Index prediction analysis. This review reveals hotspots and emerging trends in green building research and development and suggests routes for future research. Bibliometric analysis, combined with other useful tools, can quantitatively measure research activities from the past and present, thus bridging the historical gap and predicting the future of green building development.

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Introduction

Rapid urban development has resulted in buildings becoming a massive consumer of energy (Yuan et al. 2013 ), liable for 39% of global energy expenditure and 68% of total electricity consumption in the USA (building). In recent years, green buildings (GBs) have become an alternative solution, rousing widespread attention. Also referred to as sustainable buildings, low energy buildings, and eco-buildings, GBs are designed to reduce the strain on environmental resources as well as curb negative effects on human health by efficiently using natural resources, reducing garbage, and ensuring the residents’ well-being through improved living conditions ( Agency USEP Indoor Air Quality ; Building, n.d ). As a strategy to improve the sustainability of the construction industry, GBs have been widely recognized by governments globally, as a necessary step towards a sustainable construction industry (Shen et al. 2017 ).

Zuo and Zhao ( 2014 ) reviewed the current research status and future development direction of GBs, focusing on connotation and research scope, the benefit-difference between GBs and traditional buildings, and various ways to achieve green building development. Zhao et al. ( 2019 ) presented a bibliometric report of studies on GBs between 2000 and 2016, identifying hot research topics and knowledge gaps. The verification of the true performance of sustainable buildings, the application of ICT, health and safety hazards in the development of green projects, and the corporate social responsibility were detected as future agenda. A scientometrics review of research papers on GB sources from 14 architectural journals between 1992 and 2018 was also presented (Wuni et al. 2019a ). The study reported that 44% of the world participated in research focusing on green building implementation; stakeholder management; attitude assessment; regulations and policies; energy efficiency assessment; sustainability performance assessment; green building certification, etc.

With the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, society is now aware of the importance of healthy buildings. In fact, in the past 20 years, the relationship between the built environment and health has aroused increasing research interest in the field of building science. Public spaces and dispersion of buildings in mixed-use neighborhoods are promoted. Furthermore, telecommuting has become a trend since the COVID-19 pandemic, making indoor air quality even more important in buildings, now (Fezi 2020 ).

The system for evaluating the sustainability of buildings has been established for nearly two decades. But, systems dedicated to identifying whether buildings are healthy have only recently appeared (McArthur and Powell 2020 ). People are paying more and more attention to health factors in the built environment. This is reflected in the substantial increase in related academic papers and the increase in health building certification systems such as WELE and Fitwel (McArthur and Powell 2020 ).

Taking the above into consideration, the aim of this study is to examine the stages of development of GBs worldwide and find the barriers and the hotpots in global trends. This study may be beneficial to foreign governments interested in promoting green building and research in their own nations.

Methodology

Overall description of research design.

Since it is difficult to investigate historical data and predict global trends of GBs, literature research was conducted to analyze their development. The number of published reports on a topic in a particular country may influence the level of industrial development in that certain area (Zhang et al. 2017 ). The bibliometric analysis allows for a quantitative assessment of the development and advancement of research related to GBs and where they are from. Furthermore, it has been shown that useful data has been gathered through bibliometrics and patent analysis (Daim et al. 2006 ).

In this report, the bibliometric method, social network analysis (SNA), CiteSpace, big data method, patent analysis, and S-curve analysis are used to assess data.

Bibliometrics analysis

Bibliometrics, a class of scientometrics, is a tool developed in 1969 for library and information science. It has since been adopted by other fields of study that require a quantitative assessment of academic articles to determine trends and predict future research scenarios by compiling output and type of publication, title, keyword, author, institution, and countries data (Ho 2008 ; Li et al. 2017 ).

Social network analysis

Social network analysis (SNA) is applied to studies by modeling network maps using mathematics and statistics (Mclinden 2013 ; Ye et al. 2013 ). In the SNA, nodes represent social actors, while connections between actors stand for their relationships (Zhang et al. 2017 ). Correlations between two actors are determined by their distance from each other. There is a variety of software for the visualization of SNA such as Gephi, Vosviewer, and Pajek. In this research, “Pajek” was used to model the sequence of and relationships between the objects in the map (Du et al. 2015 ).

CiteSpace is an open-source Java application that maps and analyzes trends in publication statistics gathered from the ISI-Thomson Reuters Scientific database and produces graphic representations of this data (Chen 2006 ; Li et al. 2017 ). Among its many functions, it can determine critical moments in the evolution of research in a particular field, find patterns and hotspots, locate areas of rapid growth, and breakdown the network into categorized clusters (Chen 2006 ).

Big data method

The big data method, with its 3V characters (volume, velocity, and variety), can give useful and accurate information. Enormous amounts of data, which could not be collected or computed manually through conventional methods, can now be collected through public data website. Based on large databases and machine learning, the big data method can be used to design, operate, and evaluate energy efficiency and other index combined with other technologies (Mehmood et al. 2019 ). The primary benefit of big data is that the data is gathered from entire populations as opposed to a small sample of people (Chen et al. 2018 ; Ho 2008 ). It has been widely used in many research areas. In this research, we use the “Baidu Index” to form a general idea of the trends in specific areas based on user interests. The popularity of the keywords could imply the user’s behavior, user’s demand, user’s portrait, etc. Thus, we can analyze the products or events to help with developing strategies. However, it must be noted that although big data can quantitatively represent human behavior, it cannot determine what motivates it. With the convergence of big data and technology, there are unprecedented applications in the field of green building for the improved indoor living environment and controlled energy consumption (Marinakis 2020 ).

• Patent analysis

Bibliometrics, combined with patent analysis, bridges gaps that may exist in historical data when predicting future technologies (Daim et al. 2006 ). It is a trusted form of technical analysis as it is supported by abundant sources and commercial awareness of patents (Guozhu et al. 2018 ; Yoon and Park 2004 ). Therefore, we used patent analysis from the Derwent patent database to conduct an initial analysis and forecast GB technologies.

There are a variety of methods to predict the future development prospects of a technology. Since many technologies are developed in accordance with the S-curve trend, researchers use the S-curve to observe and predict the future trend of technologies (Bengisu and Nekhili 2006 ; Du et al. 2019 ; Liu and Wang 2010 ). The evolution of technical systems generally goes through four stages: emerging, growth, maturity, and decay (saturation) (Ernst 1997 ). We use the logistics model (performed in Loglet Lab 4 software developed by Rockefeller University) to simulate the S-curve of GB-related patents to predict its future development space.

Data collection

The Web of Science (WOS) core collection database is made up of trustworthy and highly ranked journals. It is considered the leading data portal for publications in many fields (Pouris and Pouris 2011 ). Furthermore, the WOS has been cited as the main data source in many recent bibliometric reviews on buildings (Li et al. 2017 ).

Access to all publications used in this paper was attained through the Science Citation Index-Expanded and the Social Sciences Citation Index databases. Because there is no relevant data in WOS before 1998, our examination focuses on 1998 to 2018. With consideration of synonyms, we set a series of green building-related words (see Appendix ) in titles, abstracts, and keywords for bibliometric analysis. For example, sustainable, low energy, zero energy, and low carbon can be substituted for green; housing, construction, and architecture can be a substitute for building (Zuo and Zhao 2014 ).

Analytical procedure

The study was conducted in three stages; data extraction was the first step where all the GB-related words were screened in WOS. Afterwards, some initial analysis was done to get a complete idea of GB research. Then, we made a further analysis on countries’ characteristics, dominant issues, and detected technology hotspots via patent analysis (Fig. 1 ).

Analytical procedure of the article

Results and analysis

General results.

Of the 6140 publications searched in the database, 88.67% were articles, followed by reviews (6.80%), papers (3.72%), and others (such as editorial materials, news, book reviews). Most articles were written in English (96.78%), followed by German (1.77%), Spanish (0.91%), and other European languages. Therefore, we will only make a further analysis of the types of articles in English publications.

The subject categories and their distribution

The SCI-E and SSCI database determined 155 subjects from the pool of 5246 articles reviewed, such as building technology, energy and fuels, civil engineering, environmental, material science, and thermodynamics, which suggests green building is a cross-disciplinary area of research. The top 3 research areas of green buildings are Construction & Building Technology (36.98%), Energy & Fuels (30.39%), and Engineering Civil (29.49%), which account for over half of the total categories.

The journals’ performance

The top 10 journals contained 38.8% of the 5246 publications, and the distribution of their publications is shown in Fig. 2 . Impact factors qualitatively indicate the standard of journals, the research papers they publish, and researchers associated with those papers (Huibin et al. 2015 ). Below, we used 2017 impact factors in Journal Citation Reports (JCR) to determine the journal standards.

The performance of top10 most productive journals

Publications on green building have appeared in a variety of titles, including energy, building, environment, materials, sustainability, indoor built environment, and thermal engineering. Energy and Buildings, with its impact factor 4.457, was the most productive journal apparently from 2009 to 2017. Sustainability (IF = 2.075) and Journal of Cleaner Production (IF = 5.651) rose to significance rapidly since 2015 and ranked top two journals in 2018.

Publication output

The total publication trends from 1998 to 2018 are shown in Fig. 3 , which shows a staggering increase across the 10 years. Since there was no relevant data before 1998, the starting year is 1998. Before 2004, the number of articles published per year fluctuated. The increasing rate reached 75% and 68% in 2004 and 2007, respectively, which are distinguished in Fig. 3 that leads us to believe that there are internal forces at work, such as appropriate policy creation and enforcement by concerned governments. There was a constant and steady growth in publications after 2007 in the worldwide view.

The number of articles published yearly, between 1998 and 2018

The characteristics of the countries

Global distribution and global network were analyzed to illustrate countries’ characteristics. Many tools such as ArcGIS, Bibexcel, Pajek, and Baidu index were used in this part (Fig. 4 ).

Analysis procedure of countries’ characteristics

Global distribution of publications

By extracting the authors’ addresses (Mao et al. 2015 ), the number of publications from each place was shown in Fig. 5 and Table 1 . Apparently, the USA was the most productive country accounting for 14.98% of all the publications. China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan) and the UK followed next by 13.29% and 8.27% separately. European countries such as Italy, Spain, and Germany also did a lot of work on green building development.

Global geographical distribution of the top 20 publications based on authors’ locations

Global research network

Global networks illustrate cooperation between countries through the analysis of social networks. Academic partnerships among the 10 most productive countries are shown in Fig. 6 . Collaboration is determined by the affiliation of the co-authors, and if a publication is a collaborative research, all countries or institutions will benefit from it (Bozeman et al. 2013 ). Every node denotes a country and their size indicates the amount of publications from that country. The lines linking the nodes denote relationships between countries and their thickness indicates the level of collaboration (Mao et al. 2015 ).

The top 10 most productive countries had close academic collaborative relationships

It was obvious that China and Australia had the strongest linking strength. Secondly, China and the USA, China, and the UK also had close cooperation with each other. Then, the USA with Canada and South Korea followed. The results indicated that cooperation in green building research was worldwide. At the same time, such partnerships could help countries increase individual productivity.

Global trend of publications

The time-trend analysis of academic inputs to green building from the most active countries is shown in Fig. 7 .

The publication trends of the top five countriesbetween 1998 and 2018 countries areshown in Fig 7 .

Before 2007, these countries showed little growth per year. However, they have had a different, growing trend since 2007. The USA had the greatest proportion of publications from 2007, which rose obviously each year, reaching its peak in 2016 then declined. The number of articles from China was at 13 in 2007, close to the USA. Afterwards, there was a steady growth in China. Not until 2013 did China have a quick rise from 41 publications to 171 in 2018. The UK and Italy had a similar growth trend before 2016 but declined in the last 2 years.

Further analysis on China, the USA, and the UK

Green building development in china, policy implementation in china.

Green building design started in China with the primary goal of energy conservation. In September 2004, the award of “national green building innovation” of the Ministry of Construction was launched, which kicked off the substantive development of GB in China. As we can see from Fig. 7 , there were few publications before 2004 in China. In 2004, there were only 4 publications on GB.

The Ministry of Construction, along with the Ministry of Science and Technology, in 2005, published “The Technical Guidelines for Green Buildings,” proposing the development of GBs (Zhang et al. 2018 ). In June 2006, China had implemented the first “Evaluation Standard for Green Building” (GB/T 50378-2006), which promoted the study of the green building field. In 2007, the demonstration of “100 projects of green building and 100 projects of low-energy building” was launched. In August 2007, the Ministry of Construction issued the “Green Building Assessment Technical Regulations (try out)” and the “Green Building Evaluation Management,” following Beijing, Tianjin, Chongqing, and Shanghai, more than 20 provinces and cities issued the local green building standards, which promoted GBs in large areas in China.

At the beginning of 2013, the State Council issued the “Green Building Action Plan,” so the governments at all levels continuously issued incentive policies for the development of green buildings (Ye et al. 2015 ). The number of certified green buildings has shown a blowout growth trend throughout the country, which implied that China had arrived at a new chapter of development.

In August 2016, the Evaluation Standard for Green Renovation of Existing Buildings was released, encouraging the rise of residential GB research. Retrofitting an existing building is often more cost-effective than building a new facility. Designing significant renovations and alterations to existing buildings, including sustainability measures, will reduce operating costs and environmental impacts and improve the building’s adaptability, durability, and resilience.

At the same time, a number of green ecological urban areas have emerged (Zhang et al. 2018 ). For instance, the Sino-Singapore Tianjin eco-city is a major collaborative project between the two governments. Located in the north of Tianjin Binhai New Area, the eco-city is characterized by salinization of land, lack of freshwater, and serious pollution, which can highlight the importance of eco-city construction. The construction of eco-cities has changed the way cities develop and has provided a demonstration of similar areas.

China has many emerging areas and old centers, so erecting new, energy efficiency buildings and refurbishing existing buildings are the best steps towards saving energy.

Baidu Search Index of “green building”

In order to know the difference in performance among cities in China, this study employs the big data method “Baidu Index” for a smart diagnosis and assessment on green building at finer levels. “Baidu Index” is not equal to the number of searches but is positively related to the number of searches, which is calculated by the statistical model. Based on the keyword search of “green building” in the Baidu Index from 2013 to 2018, the top 10 provinces or cities were identified (Fig. 8 ).

Baidu Search Index of green building in China 2013–2018 from high to low

The top 10 search index distributes the east part and middle part of China, most of which are the high GDP provinces (Fig. 9 ). Economically developed cities in China already have a relatively mature green building market. Many green building projects with local characteristics have been established (Zhang et al. 2018 ).

TP GDP & Search Index were highly related

We compared the city search index (2013–2018) with the total publications of different cities by the authors’ address and the GDP in 2018. The correlation coefficient between the TP and the search index was 0.9, which means the two variables are highly related. The correlation coefficient between the TP and GDP was 0.73, which also represented a strong relationship. We inferred that cities with higher GDP had more intention of implementation on green buildings. The stronger the local GDP, the more relevant the economic policies that can be implemented to stimulate the development of green buildings (Hong et al. 2017 ). Local economic status (Yang et al. 2018 ), property developer’s ability, and effective government financial incentives are the three most critical factors for green building implementation (Huang et al. 2018 ). However, Wang et al. ( 2017 ) compared the existing green building design standards and found that they rarely consider the regional economy. Aiming at cities at different economic development phases, the green building design standards for sustainable construction can effectively promote the implementation of green buildings. Liu et al. ( 2020 ) mainly discussed the impact of sustainable construction on GDP. According to the data, there is a strong correlation between the percentage of GDP increments in China and the amount of sustainable infrastructure (Liu et al. 2020 ). The construction of infrastructure can create jobs and improve people’s living standards, increasing GDP as a result (Liu et al. 2020 ).

Green building development in the USA and the UK

The sign that GBs were about to take-off occurred in 1993—the formation of the United States Green Building Council (USGBC), an independent agency. The promulgation of the Energy Policy Act 2005 in the USA was the key point in the development of GBs. The Energy Policy Act 2005 paid great attention to green building energy saving, which also inspired publications on GBs.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), a popular metric for sustainable buildings and homes (Jalaei and Jrade 2015 ), has become a thriving business model for green building development. It is a widely used measure of how buildings affect the environment.

Another phenomenon worth discussion, combined with Fig. 7 , the increasing rate peaked at 75% in 2004 and 68% in 2007 while the publications of the UK reached the peak in 2004 and 2007. The UK Green Building Council (UKGBC), a United Kingdom membership organization, created in 2007 with regard to the 2004 Sustainable Building Task Group Report: Better Buildings - Better Lives, intends to “radically transform,” all facets of current and future built environment in the UK. It is predicted that the establishment of the UKGBC promoted research on green buildings.

From the China, the USA, and the UK experience, it is predicted that the foundation of a GB council or the particular projects from the government will promote research in this area.

Barriers and contradicts of green building implement

On the other hand, it is obvious that the USA, the UK, and Italian publications have been declining since 2016. There might be some barriers and contradicts on the adoption of green buildings for developed countries. Some articles studied the different barriers to green building in developed and developing countries (Chan et al. 2018 ) (Table 2 ). Because the fraction of energy end-uses is different, the concerns for GBs in the USA, China, and the European Union are also different (Cao et al. 2016 ).

It is regarded that higher cost is the most deterring barrier to GB development across the globe (Nguyen et al. 2017 ). Other aspects such as lack of market demand and knowledge were also main considerations of green building implementation.

As for market demand, occupant satisfaction is an important factor. Numerous GB post-occupancy investigations on occupant satisfaction in various communities have been conducted.

Paul and Taylor ( 2008 ) surveyed personnel ratings of their work environment with regard to ambience, tranquility, lighting, sound, ventilation, heat, humidity, and overall satisfaction. Personnel working in GBs and traditional buildings did not differ in these assessments. Khoshbakht et al. ( 2018 ) identified two global contexts in spite of the inconclusiveness: in the west (mainly the USA and Britain), users experienced no significant differences in satisfaction between green and traditional buildings, whereas, in the east (mainly China and South Korea), GB user satisfaction is significantly higher than traditional building users.

Dominant issues

The dominant issues on different stages.

Bibliometric data was imported to CiteSpace where a three-stage analysis was conducted based on development trends: 1998–2007 initial development; 2008–2015 quick development; 2016–2018 differentiation phase (Fig. 10 ).

Analysis procedure of dominant issues

CiteSpace was used for word frequency and co-word analysis. The basic principle of co-word analysis is to count a group of words appearing at the same time in a document and measure the close relationship between them by the number of co-occurrences. The top 50 levels of most cited or occurred items from each slice (1998 to 2007; 2008 to 2015; 2016 to 2018) per year were selected. After merging the similar words (singular or plural form), the final keyword knowledge maps were generated as follows.

Initial phase (1998–2007)

In the early stage (Fig. 11 ), “green building” and “sustainability” were the main two clusters. Economics and “environmental assessment method” both had high betweenness centrality of 0.34 which were identified as pivotal points. Purple rings denote pivotal points in the network. The relationships in GB were simple at the initial stage of development.

Co-word analysis from 1998–2007

Sustainable construction is further enabled with tools that can evaluate the entire life cycle, site preparation and management, materials and their reusability, and the reduction of resource and energy consumption. Environmental building assessment methods were incorporated to achieve sustainable development, especially at the initial project appraisal stage (Ding 2008 ). Green Building Challenge (GBC) is an exceptional international research, development, and dissemination effort for developing building environmental performance assessments, primarily to help researchers and practitioners in dealing with difficult obstacles in assessing performance (Todd et al. 2001 ).

Quick development (2008–2015)

In the rapid growing stage (Fig. 12 ), pivot nodes and cluster centers were more complicated. Besides “green building” and “sustainability,” “energy efficiency” was the third hotspot word. The emergence of new vocabulary in the keyword network indicated that the research had made progress during 2008 – 2015. Energy performance, energy consumption, natural ventilation, thermal comfort, renewable energy, and embodied energy were all energy related. Energy becomes the most attractive field in achieving sustainability and green building. Other aspects such as “life cycle assessment,” “LEED,” and “thermal comfort” became attractive to researchers.

Co-word analysis from 2008–2015

The life cycle assessment (LCA) is a popular technique for the analysis of the technical side of GBs. LCA was developed from environmental assessment and economic analysis which could be a useful method to evaluate building energy efficiency from production and use to end-use (Chwieduk 2003 ). Much attention has been paid to LCA because people began to focus more on the actual performance of the GBs. Essentially, LCA simplifies buildings into systems, monitoring, and calculating mass flow and energy consumption over different stages in their life cycle.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) was founded by the USGBC and began in the early twenty-first century (Doan et al. 2017 ). LEED is a not-for-profit project based on consumer demand and consensus that offers an impartial GB certification. LEED is the preferred building rating tool globally, with its shares growing rapidly. Meanwhile, UK’s Building Research Establishment Assessment Method (BREEAM) and Japan’s Comprehensive Assessment System for Building Environmental Efficiency (CASBEE) have been in use since the beginning of the twenty-first century, while New Zealand’s Green Star is still in its earlier stages. GBs around the world are made to suit regional climate concerns and need.

In practice, not all certified green buildings are necessarily performing well. Newsham et al. ( 2009 ) gathered energy-use information from 100 LEED-certified non-residential buildings. Results indicated that 28–35% of LEED structures actually consumed higher amounts of energy than the non-LEED structures. There was little connection in its actual energy consumption to its certification grade, meaning that further improvements are required for establishing a comprehensive GB rating metric to ensure consistent performance standards.

Thermal comfort was related to many aspects, such as materials, design scheme, monitoring system, and human behaviors. Materials have been a focus area for improving thermal comfort and reducing energy consumption. Wall (Schossig et al. 2005 ), floor (Ansuini et al. 2011 ), ceiling (Hu et al. 2018 ), window, and shading structures (Shen and Li 2016 ) were building envelopes which had been paid attention to over the years. Windows were important envelopes to improve thermal comfort. For existing and new buildings, rational use of windows and shading structures can enhance the ambient conditions of buildings (Mcleod et al. 2013 ). It was found that redesigning windows could reduce the air temperature by 2.5% (Elshafei et al. 2017 ), thus improving thermal comfort through passive features and reducing the use of active air conditioners (Perez-Fargallo et al. 2018 ). The monitoring of air conditioners’ performance could also prevent overheating of buildings (Ruellan and Park 2016 ).

Differentiation phase (2016–2018)

In the years from 2016 to 2018 (Fig. 13 ), “green building,” ”sustainability,” and “energy efficiency” were still the top three hotspots in GB research.

Co-word analysis from 2016–2018

Zero-energy building (ZEB) became a substitute for low energy building in this stage. ZEB was first introduced in 2000 (Cao et al. 2016 ) and was believed to be the solution to the potential ramifications of future energy consumption by buildings (Liu et al. 2019 ). The EU has been using ZEB standards in all of its new building development projects to date (Communuties 2002 ). The USA passed the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, aiming for zero net energy consumption of 1 out of every 2 commercial buildings that are yet to be built by 2040 and for all by 2050 (Sartori et al. 2012 ). Energy consumption became the most important factor in new building construction.

Renewable energy was a key element of sustainable development for mankind and nature (Zhang et al. 2013 ). Using renewable energy was an important feature of ZEBs (Cao et al. 2016 ; Pulselli et al. 2007 ). Renewable energy, in the form of solar, wind, geothermal, clean bioenergy, and marine can be used in GBs. Solar energy has been widely used in recent years while wind energy is used locally because of its randomness and unpredictable features. Geothermal energy is mainly utilized by ground source heat pump (GSHP), which has been lauded as a powerful energy system for buildings (Cao et al. 2016 ). Bioenergy has gained much popularity as an alternative source of energy around the globe because it is more stable and accessible than other forms of energy (Zhang et al. 2015 ). There is relatively little use of marine energy, yet this may potentially change depending on future technological developments (Ellabban et al. 2014 ).

Residential buildings receive more attention because people spend 90% of their time inside. Contrary to popular belief, the concentration of contaminants found indoors is more than the concentration outside, sometimes up to 10 times or even 100 times more (agency). The renovation of existing buildings can save energy, upgrade thermal comfort, and improve people’s living conditions.

Energy is a substantial and widely recognized cost of building operations that can be reduced through energy-saving and green building design. Nevertheless, a consensus has been reached by academics and those in building-related fields that GBs are significantly more energy efficient than traditional buildings if designed, constructed, and operated with meticulousness (Wuni et al. 2019b ). The drive to reduce energy consumption from buildings has acted as a catalyst in developing new technologies.

Compared with the article analysis, patents can better reflect the practical technological application to a certain extent. We extracted the information of green building energy-related patent records between 1998 and 2018 from the Derwent Innovations Index database. The development of a technique follows a path: precursor–invention–development–maturity. This is commonly known as an S-type growth (Mao et al. 2018 ). Two thousand six hundred thirty-eight patents were found which were classified into “Derwent Manual Code,” which is the most distinct feature just like “keywords” in the Derwent Innovations Index. Manual codes refer to specific inventions, technological innovations, and unique codes for their applications. According to the top 20 Derwent Manual Code which accounted for more than 80% of the total patents, we classified the hotspots patents into three fields for further S-curve analysis, which are “structure,” “material,” and “energy systems” (Table 3 ).

Sustainable structural design (SSD) has gained a lot of research attention from 2006 to 2016 (Pongiglione and Calderini 2016 ). The S-curve of structure* (Fig. 14 ) has just entered the later period of the growth stage, accounting for 50% of the total saturation in 2018. Due to its effectiveness and impact, SSD has overtime gained recognition and is now considered by experts to be a prominent tool in attaining sustainability goals (Pongiglione and Calderini 2016 ).

The S-curves of different Structure types from patents

Passive design is important in energy saving which is achieved by appropriately orientating buildings and carefully designing the building envelope. Building envelopes, which are key parts of the energy exchange between the building and the external environment, include walls, roofs, windows, and floors. The EU increased the efficiency of its heat-regulating systems by revamping building envelopes as a primary energy-saving task during 2006 to 2016 (Cao et al. 2016 ).

We analyzed the building envelope separately. According to the S-curve (Fig. 14 ), the number of patents related to GB envelops are in the growth stage. At present, building envelops such as walls, roofs, windows, and even doors have not reached 50% of the saturated quantity. Walls and roofs are two of the most important building envelops. The patent contents of walls mainly include wall materials and manufacturing methods, modular wall components, and wall coatings while technologies about roofs mainly focus on roof materials, the combination of roof and solar energy, and roof structures. Green roofs are relatively new sustainable construction systems because of its esthetic and environmental benefits (Wei et al. 2015 ).

The material resources used in the building industry consume massive quantities of natural and energy resources consumptions (Wang et al. 2018 ). The energy-saving building material is economical and environmentally friendly, has low coefficient heat conductivity, fast curing speed, high production efficacy, wide raw material source and flame, and wear resistance properties (Zhang et al. 2014 ). Honeycomb structures were used for insulating sustainable buildings. They are lightweight and conserve energy making them eco-friendly and ideal for construction (Miao et al. 2011 ).

According to the S-curve (Fig. 15 ), it can be seen that the number of patents on the GB “material” is in the growth stage. It is expected that the number of patents will reach 50% of the total saturation in 2022.

The S-curves of a different material from patents

Building material popularly used comprised of cement, concrete, gypsum, mortar compositions, and boards. Cement is widely used in building material because of its easy availability, strong hardness, excellent waterproof and fireproof performance, and low cost. The S-curve of cement is in the later period of the growth stage, which will reach 90% of the total saturation in 2028. Composite materials like Bamcrete (bamboo-concrete composite) and natural local materials like Rammed Earth had better thermal performance compared with energy-intensive materials like bricks and cement (Kandya and Mohan 2018 ). Novel bricks synthesized from fly ash and coal gangue have better advantages of energy saving in brick production phases compared with that of conventional types of bricks (Zhang et al. 2014 ). For other materials like gypsum or mortar, the numbers of patents are not enough for S-curve analysis. New-type green building materials offer an alternative way to realize energy-saving for sustainable constructions.

Energy system

The energy system mainly included a heating system and ventilation system according to the patent analysis. So, we analyzed solar power systems and air conditioning systems separately. Heat* included heat collecting panels and a fluid heating system.

The results indicated that heat*-, solar-, and ventilation-related technologies were in the growth stage which would reach 50% of the total saturation in 2022 (Fig. 16 ). Photovoltaic technology is of great importance in solar energy application (Khan and Arsalan 2016 ).

The S-curves of energy systems from patents

On the contrary, air conditioning technologies had entered into the mature stage after a decade of development. It is worth mentioning that the design of the fresh air system of buildings after the COVID-19 outbreak is much more important. With people spending the majority of their time inside (Liu et al. 2019 ), volatile organic compounds, formaldehyde, and carbon dioxide received the most attention worldwide (Wei et al. 2015 ). Due to health problems like sick building syndrome, and more recently since the COVID-19 outbreak, the supply of fresh air can drastically ameliorate indoor air quality (IAQ) (Liu et al. 2019 ). Regulating emissions from materials, enhanced ventilation, and monitoring air indoors are the main methods used in GBs for maintaining IAQ (Wei et al. 2015 ). Air circulation frequency and improved air filtration can reduce the risk of spreading certain diseases, while controlling the airflow between rooms can also prevent cross-infections. Poor indoor air quality and ventilation provide ideal conditions for the breeding and spreading of viruses by air (Chen et al. 2019 ). A diverse range of air filters coupled with a fresh air supply system should be studied. A crucial step forward is to create a cost-effective, energy-efficient, intelligent fresh air supply system (Liu et al. 2017 ) to monitor, filter outdoor PM2.5 (Chen et al. 2017 ), and saving building energy (Liu and Liu 2005 ). Earth-air heat exchanger system (EAHE) is a novel technology that supplies fresh air using underground soil heat (Chen et al. 2019 ).

A total of 5246 journal articles in English from the SCI and SSCI databases published in 1998–2018 were reviewed and analyzed. The study revealed that the literature on green buildings has grown rapidly over the past 20 years. The findings and results are summarized:

Data analysis revealed that GB research is distributed across various subject categories. Energy and Buildings, Building and Environment, Journal of Cleaner Production, and Sustainability were the top journals to publish papers on green buildings.

Global distribution was done to see the green building study worldwide, showing that the USA, China, and the UK ranked the top three countries, accounting for 14.98%, 13.29%, and 8.27% of all the publications respectively. Australia and China had the closest relationship on green building research cooperation worldwide.

Further analysis was made on countries’ characteristics, dominant issues through keyword co-occurrence, green building technology by patent analysis, and S-curve prediction. Global trends of the top 5 countries showed different characteristics. China had a steady and consistent growth in publications each year while the USA, the UK, and Italy were on a decline from 2016. The big data method was used to see the city performance in China, finding that the total publications had a high correlation with the city’s GDP and Baidu Search Index. Policies were regarded as the stimulation for green building development, either in China or the UK. Also, barriers and contradictions such as cost, occupants’ comfort, and energy consumption were discussed about the developed and developing countries.

Cluster and content analysis via CiteSpace identified popular and trending research topics at different stages of development; the top three hotspots were green buildings, sustainability, and energy efficiency throughout the whole research period. Energy efficiency has shifted from low to zero energy buildings or even beyond it in recent years. Energy efficiency was the most important drive to achieve green buildings while LCA and LEED were the two potential ways to evaluate building performance. Thermal comfort and natural ventilation of residential buildings became a topic of interest to the public.

Then, we combined the keywords with “energy” to make further patent analysis in Derwent Innovations Index. “Structure,” “material,” and “energy systems” were three of the most important types of green building technologies. According to S-curve analysis, most of the technologies of energy-saving buildings were on the fast-growing trend, and even though there were conflicts and doubts in different countries on GB adoption, it is still a promising field.

Future directions

An establishment of professional institutes or a series of policies and regulations on green building promulgated by government departments will promote research development (as described in the “Further Analysis on China, the USA, and the UK” section). Thus, a policy enacted by a formal department is of great importance in this particular field.

Passive design is important in energy saving which is ensured by strategically positioning buildings and precisely engineering the building envelope, i.e., roof, walls, windows, and floors. A quality, the passive-design house is crucial to achieving sustained thermal comfort, low-carbon footprint, and a reduced gas bill. The new insulation material is a promising field for reducing building heat loss and energy consumed. Healthy residential buildings have become a focus of future development due to people’s pursuit of a healthy life. A fresh air supply system is important for better indoor air quality and reduces the risk of transmission of several diseases. A 2020 study showed the COVID-19 virus remains viable for only 4 hours on copper compared to 24 h on cardboard. So, antiviral materials will be further studied for healthy buildings (Fezi 2020 ).

With the quick development of big data method and intelligent algorithms, artificial intelligence (AI) green buildings will be a trend. The core purpose of AI buildings is to achieve optimal operating conditions through the accurate analysis of data, collected by sensors built into green buildings. “Smart buildings” and “Connected Buildings” of the future, fitted with meters and sensors, can collect and share massive amounts of information regarding energy use, water use, indoor air quality, etc. Analyzing this data can determine relationships and patterns, and optimize the operation of buildings to save energy without compromising the quality of the indoor environment (Lazarova-Molnar and Mohamed 2019 ).

The major components of green buildings, such as building envelope, windows, and skylines, should be adjustable and versatile in order to get full use of AI. A digital control system can give self-awareness to buildings, adjusting room temperature, indoor air quality, and air cooling/heating conditions to control power consumption, and make it sustainable (Mehmood et al. 2019 ).

Concerns do exist, for example, occupant privacy, data security, robustness of design, and modeling of the AI building (Maasoumy and Sangiovanni-Vincentelli 2016 ). However, with increased data sources and highly adaptable infrastructure, AI green buildings are the future.

This examination of research conducted on green buildings between the years 1998 and 2018, through bibliometric analysis combined with other useful tools, offers a quantitative representation of studies and data conducted in the past and present, bridging historical gaps and forecasting the future of green buildings—providing valuable insight for academicians, researchers, and policy-makers alike.

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This study was supported by The National Natural Science Foundation of China (No.51808385).

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Ying Li conceived the frame of the paper and wrote the manuscript. Yanyu Rong made the data figures and participated in writing the manuscript. Umme Marium Ahmad helped with revising the language. Xiaotong Wang consulted related literature for the manuscript. Jian Zuo contributed significantly to provide the keywords list. Guozhu Mao helped with constructive suggestions.

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Topic: (“bioclimatic architect*” or “bioclimatic build*” or “bioclimatic construct*” or “bioclimatic hous*” or “eco-architect*” or “eco-build*” or “eco-home*” or “eco-hous*” or “eco-friendly build*” or “ecological architect*” or “ecological build*” or “ecological hous*” or “energy efficient architect*” or “energy efficient build*” or “energy efficient construct*” or “energy efficient home*” or “energy efficient hous*” or “energy efficient struct*” or “energy saving architect*” or “energy saving build*” or “energy saving construct*” or “energy saving home*” or “energy saving hous*” or “energy saving struct*” or “green architect*” or “green build*” or “green construct*” or “green home*” or “low carbon architect*” or “low carbon build*” or “low carbon construct*” or “low carbon home*” or “low carbon hous*” or “low energy architect*” or “low energy build*” or “low energy construct*” or “low energy home*” or “low energy hous*” or “sustainable architect*” or “sustainable build*” or “sustainable construct*” or “sustainable home*” or “sustainable hous*” or “zero energy build*” or “zero energy home*” or “zero energy hous*” or “net zero energy build*” or “net zero energy home*” or “net zero energy hous*” or “zero-carbon build*” or “zero-carbon home*” or “zero-carbon hous*” or “carbon neutral build*” or “carbon neutral construct*” or “carbon neutral hous*” or “high performance architect*” or “high performance build*” or “high performance construct*” or “high performance home*” or “high performance hous*”)

Time span: 1998-2018。 Index: SCI-EXPANDED, SSCI。

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Li, Y., Rong, Y., Ahmad, U.M. et al. A comprehensive review on green buildings research: bibliometric analysis during 1998–2018. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28 , 46196–46214 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12739-7

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-12739-7

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Green Building: A Flawed Yet Worthwhile Industry

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Bob Brown, an Australian politician, once warned, "The future will either be green or not at all." In modern America, almost every aspect of daily life impacts the environment. From the cars people drive to the food both humans and animals eat, effects of daily choices resound in the environment. Some decisions, such as the option to drive a car, are daily and deliberate. Thus, the impacts appear more evident. Other interactions with environmental ties, like the design of one's home, may not involve frequent decisions, yet these factors impact the world in a similar manner. In fact, choices regarding building design impact the residents of a building and the surroundings for numerous years after implementation. Initiatives in sustainable building methods, such as LEED, are among the efforts to transform the construction of buildings and to reduce energy consumption while maintaining the wellbeing of both humans and the environment. It is clear that economic incentives for sustainable construction make green implementation viable. However, vagueness in the green rating systems prevents efficient implementation of green technology. Green design programs demonstrate promising long-term economic viability, yet ambiguities in the green rating systems detract from the effectiveness of these sustainable programs. Could these flawed green criteria be improved in an economically viable manner, and how would changing green criteria impact the sustainable design process?

When considering methods of waste reduction, transportation is often the first topic to come to mind; however, building design significantly contributes to the environmental impacts of humans. Notably, buildings account for one-third of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. [1] Additionally, Kibert writes, "More than 40% of the world's energy, 25% of its water and 40% of its natural resources are consumed by buildings; they are also responsible for the generation of over 45% of global wastes." [2] Buildings impact the surroundings throughout their lifecycle. From the beginning of construction to the conclusion of demolition, all aspects of the building process integrate with the ecosystem around the structure.

Due to the serious impact of buildings, engineers seek to minimize the harmful effects of construction through sustainable development. In 1987, Our Common Future , a report from the United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, first defined sustainable development as "development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." [3] This definition unofficially marked the beginning of the world's interest in sustainable development. With increased environmental research, the public awareness of the devastating environmental impacts related to human behavior has risen in recent years. Thus, people have readily adopted sustainable innovations in more parts of the world than ever before.

Despite increased green adoption in some areas, the perceived cost of building green serves as a barrier for some potential customers. As no quick fix presents itself in many cases, developing sustainable practices takes time and money in order to implement the proper technologies. However, misconceptions surround the expenses of green building practices relative to the costs of a standard design. In a 2003 study, the costs of 33 green buildings from across the United States were compared to conventional designs for comparable buildings. Kats concluded, "The average premium for these green buildings is slightly less than 2%, or $3-5 per square foot, substantially lower than is commonly perceived." [4] This would equate to around $10,000 of additional costs for a 2,500 square foot home. The majority of the cost discrepancy is due to the increased architectural and engineering design time, modeling costs, and time necessary to integrate sustainable building practices into projects. [5] Due to lifecycle benefits of sustainably designed buildings, the earlier green building features are implemented, the lower the cost becomes in the long-run. Green buildings also provide health and economic benefits that traditional buildings do not.

In spite of initial expenses, sustainable design yields value in the long-run. The direct benefits associated with green building are related to costs. Green buildings save energy by reducing electricity purchases and minimizing peak energy demands. [6] Kats writes, "On average, green buildings are 28% more efficient than conventional buildings and generate 2% of their power on-site from photovoltaics (PV). The financial benefits of 30% reduced consumption at an electricity price of $0.08/kWh are about $0.30/ft2 /yr, with a 20-year NPV of over $5/ft2." [7] These savings are comparable to or more than the typical marginal cost associated with initially building green. From electricity alone, green buildings can pay for their additional expenses in 20 years. In that case, all savings related to other factors would be considered profitable for an average owner. Additionally, human costs related to air pollution caused by non-renewable power generation and on-site fossil fuel use are often excluded when making investment decisions.

In regards to human experience within a building, sustainable design benefits the residents through increased productivity and improved health. By improving the indoor environmental quality, the inhabitants of a building see many benefits during their daily routine. Even LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), a United States green certification system, places an emphasis on improving the human experience, as 42% of credit intents in LEED for Neighborhood Development are evaluated using information on human experience. [8] Quantifying the exact value of a healthier working space is difficult, as many of the costs attributed to a poor working environment do not appear on a budget sheet. Kats writes, "The costs of poor indoor environmental and air quality—including higher absenteeism and increased respiratory ailments, allergies and asthma—are hard to measure and have generally been "hidden" in sick days, lower productivity, unemployment insurance and medical costs." [9] Poor indoor environmental quality causes issues related to illness within the workplace, and improving the quality of a building can minimize these "hidden" costs. Four of the main benefits of a green building include increased control over ventilation, temperature, lighting, and an increase in natural light. By providing a more comfortable workplace, green buildings allow companies to attract and retain the best and most competitive employees. Though many of the perks associated with green buildings are not quantifiable, the benefits of improving the indoor environmental quality allow for a company to maintain the best possible experience for employees.

Although barriers such as higher initial costs and misconceptions about green systems deter some customers, the benefits of green building reserve sustainable design a place in both national and international sustainability agendas. Studies on the specific motivations towards green development identify several drivers and benefits for a group of diverse stakeholders. Outside of meeting green requirements for direct economic incentives, stakeholders and organizations also make the efforts to adopt sustainable development practices in order to improve their corporate culture and image, increase their marketability, and conserve energy to decrease operating and maintenance costs. [10] Outside of the positive effect on the environment, business owners have economic incentives motivating the shift towards sustainable design.

Sustainability has become an increasingly important factor in the economic activity of developed nations. In fact, both small businesses and large corporations utilize sustainable design as a marketing tool. The recent attention to sustainable design is striking. From 2005 to 2010, the use of the term "green building" in the US popular press tripled. [11] The public is increasingly aware of green efforts throughout the nation. Even a small decrease in the environmental impact of buildings can have drastic effects on the long-term energy consumption. Energy costs make up around 30% of a company's operating expenses in the United States. [12] Through sustainable design, executives can easily manage consumption costs amidst increasing energy prices. By incorporating green practices, tenants benefit from lower utility bills and higher employee satisfaction, and real estate investors are incentivized by higher rents and lower risk premiums. In other words, investing in green technology is a safe investment for people looking at the real estate market. In fact, a 2009 study has shown that the Energy Star rating, a classification given to certain sustainably designed buildings, is associated with 3.3 percent higher rent. [13] The increase in the number of green properties serves as evidence of both tenant and investor satisfaction. Between 2007 and 2009, the number of green office spaces in some areas more than doubled. [14] Newly constructed green buildings account for a portion of increased green spaces, but a large share of newly certified buildings are existing structures that recently qualified for an Energy Star or LEED certificate. Initiatives to adopt green technology in older buildings and an increased ease of green adoption account for this change. Green redesign presents itself as a more viable option than ever before. Thus, not all efforts to implement sustainable design occur in new construction. This dramatic increase testifies to the overall levels of satisfaction and the public fascination with the benefits of green building. However, many challenges remain. Some include a complex design system, a lack of understanding about green buildings, and a vague green rating system.

In order for future green technologies to be implemented efficiently, core pillars of green construction must develop to improve upon the currently ambiguous green rating system. The majority of a building's environmental impact comes after construction is completed. In an industry constantly among the top producers of GDP, it is essential to employ healthy practices during new phases of urbanization and renovations to existing structures. Green building, or sustainable design, is at the forefront of this issues. When defining green building, Zuo writes, "[T]here are four pillars of green buildings, i.e. minimization of impacts on the environment, enhancing the health conditions of occupants, the return on investment to developers and local community, and the life cycle consideration during the planning and development process." [15] Though people understand the outcomes of green building, the definition of the topic itself remains vague and serves as a challenge for the promotion and implementation of green buildings. In recent years, various assessment tools have developed to rate green buildings.

Among those attempting to quantify green building are Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED, United States), BRE Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM, United Kingdom), and Green Building Council of Australia Green Star (GBCA, Australia). [16] Each country has its own rating system, and each system has its own classification criteria. Overall, it is rather difficult to compare data from each system as the categories and criteria for evaluation differ greatly. However, the differences in systems can be justified by the fact that green buildings in different countries are designed and built according to local climatic conditions and seek to suit the requirements of the locals. Despite the justified discrepancies between rating systems, developing a baseline could be an essential step along the path towards an universal definition of a green building.

The lack of a baseline for green rating systems causes confusion among the building industry. Developing key credit criteria such as energy and water expenditure could be the baseline for developing new rating tools and further developing the existing systems. [17] The current green building rating tools are designed for the evaluation of planning, construction, and demolition based on credit criteria. Certain criteria are developed to encourage the well-being of both the building occupants and the environment, yet these "well-being" criteria are often ambiguous and difficult to quantify. In most cases, points are rewarded for the fulfillment of each of these credit criteria. These points add up to a single score to arrive at the specific certification. Each rating system has different criteria, and Illankoon finds an issue in the differences between systems. Illankoon adds, "[T]he set of credit criteria identified by each green building rating tool has a critical impact on the evaluation of the building performance." [18] If the criteria are not carefully chosen, members of the industry will design to different standards, and the attempt to develop buildings in an environmentally responsible manner would be in vain.

Another challenge with sustainable design comes from the complexity of optimization and its reliance upon flawed green credit criteria. As almost all buildings serve a different purpose and face diverse environmental difficulties, there is no standard green building. In fact, the design of green buildings is highly complex and must achieve the highest levels of performance while minimizing expenses. As each building presents numerous design possibilities, engineers employ computational methods to optimize designs. In order to efficiently design, analysts must decide upon an objective function or a specific goal of the project. [19] These objective functions are often based on LEED and green certification. Thus, an unclear criteria causes confusion during the design process. Additionally, designs often require the incorporation of multiple objectives which may conflict with one another. [20] For instance, increasing the amount of natural light would require the addition of more windows, yet windows are costly in terms of heating and cooling. In order to compute the optimal solution with two conflicting objectives, analysts employ a weighted-sum approach. In this technique, various objectives are assigned a weight and are combined to form a single objective. [21] Due to LEED criteria and its influence on design objectives, improvements in credit criteria would yield enhanced results in the field of green engineering.

Though LEED and other initiatives in sustainable design are currently flawed, they present an opportunity to clarify existing accreditation criteria through a green baseline. Improvements in the green rating systems would only enhance the economic and environmental viability of green building. Economic and environmental benefits for sustainable construction allow green design to be impactful. In all, green building has proven to be effective despite the barriers of adoption. From an investor's standpoint, the benefits of financial savings from reduced energy consumption, lower operation costs, and enhanced workplace productivity outweigh the additional expenses of sustainable design. Green building can be improved through establishing common criteria between each rating system. By implementing a baseline based on quantifiable factors such as the four pillars of green building, credit criteria would be less likely to conflict and optimization would yield enhanced results. Improving upon LEED and establishing a baseline for green building would effectively change green engineering processes and foster future growth in the flourishing industry of sustainable design.

[1] Charles J. Kibert, Sustainable construction: green building design and delivery (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2016), 12.

[2] Ibid., 270.

[3] United Nations Brundtland Commission. "World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED): Our Common Future." 1987, quoted in Andrew D. Basiago "Economic, social, and environmental sustainability in development theory and urban planning practice." The Environmentalist 19, no. 2 (1998): 148.

[4] Gregory Kats. Green building costs and financial benefits. (Boston: Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, 2003), 3.

[5] Ibid., 4.

[8] Chris Pyke, Sean McMahon, and Tom Dietsche. United States Government. US Green Building Council. Green Building & Human Experience. (Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2010), 7.

[9] Kats, Green building costs and financial benefits , 6.

[10] Amos Darko, Chenzhuo Zhang, and Albert PC Chan. "Drivers for green building: A review of empirical studies." Habitat international 60, (2017): 35.

[11] Piet Eichholtz, Nils Kok, and John M. Quigley. "The economics of green building." Review of Economics and Statistics 95, no. 1 (2013): 50.

[13] Piet Eichholtz, Nils Kok, and John M. Quigley. "Doing well by doing good? Green office buildings." The American Economic Review 100, no. 5 (2010): 2498.

[14] Eichholtz, "The economics of green building", 51.

[15] Jian Zuo, and Zhen-Yu Zhao. "Green building research–current status and future agenda: A review." Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 30, (2014): 272.

[16] Ibid., 273.

[17] Chethana S. Illankoon, Vivian WY Tam, Khoa N. Le, and Liyin Shen. "Key credit criteria among international green building rating tools." Journal of Cleaner Production 164, (2017): 210.

[19] Ralph Evins. "A review of computational optimisation methods applied to sustainable building design." Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 22, (2013): 232.

[20] Ibid., 233.

[21] Ibid., 234.

Works Cited

Basiago, Andrew D. "Economic, social, and environmental sustainability in development theory and urban planning practice." The Environmentalist 19, no. 2 (1998): 145-161.

Darko, Amos, Chenzhuo Zhang, and Albert PC Chan. "Drivers for green building: A review of empirical studies." Habitat international 60, (2017): 34-49.

Eichholtz, Piet, Nils Kok, and John M. Quigley. "Doing well by doing good? Green office buildings." The American Economic Review 100, no. 5 (2010): 2492-2509.

__. "The economics of green building." Review of Economics and Statistics 95, no. 1 (2013): 50-63.

Evins, Ralph. "A review of computational optimisation methods applied to sustainable building design." Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 22, (2013): 230-245

Illankoon, IM Chethana S., Vivian WY Tam, Khoa N. Le, and Liyin Shen. "Key credit criteria among international green building rating tools." Journal of Cleaner Production 164, (2017): 209-220.

Kats, Gregory. Green building costs and financial benefits . Boston: Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, 2003.

Kibert, Charles J. Sustainable construction: green building design and delivery . Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2016.

Pyke, Chris, Sean McMahon, and Tom Dietsche. United States Government. US Green Building Council. Green Building & Human Experience. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 2010.

United Nations Brundtland Commission. "World Commission on Environment and Development (WCED): Our Common Future." 1987.

Zuo, Jian, and Zhen-Yu Zhao. "Green building research–current status and future agenda: A review." Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 30, (2014): 271-281.

Brennen Hogan

Brennen Hogan is a freshman from West Des Moines, Iowa. However, he calls Keough Hall his home on campus. He is pursuing a major in computer science with a minor in business corporate practice. His essay "Green Building: A Flawed yet Worthwhile Industry" was inspired by his high school and college studies in engineering and his participation in the ACE program. Brennen would like to thank Mrs. Holsapple, Mrs. Hemann, along with his writing and rhetoric teacher, Professor Murphy, for their thoughtful teaching, insightful guidance, and passionate encouragement throughout his growth as a writer.

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112 Green Building Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Green building is a growing trend in the construction industry as more and more people become aware of the importance of sustainability and environmental conservation. If you are a student studying architecture, engineering, or any related field, you may be tasked with writing an essay on green building. To help you get started, here are 112 green building essay topic ideas and examples:

• The impact of green buildings on the environment
• The benefits of green building certification programs
• The role of sustainable materials in green building
• Energy-efficient design principles in green buildings
• The use of renewable energy sources in green buildings
• The economics of green building
• Green building policies and regulations
• Green building case studies in different regions
• The future of green building technology
• Green building practices in developing countries
• Green building vs traditional construction methods
• The importance of indoor air quality in green buildings
• The impact of green building on human health
• Green building and urban planning
• The social benefits of green building
• The role of architects in promoting green building
• The challenges of implementing green building practices
• Green building and climate change mitigation
• Green building and disaster resilience
• Green building and water conservation
• The role of green roofs in green building
• Green building and waste management
• The impact of green building on property values
• Green building and sustainable development goals
• The role of green building in carbon neutrality
• Green building and biodiversity conservation
• The psychology of green building design
• Green building and community engagement
• The role of green building in reducing greenhouse gas emissions
• Green building and energy poverty
• The impact of green building on construction industry jobs
• Green building and affordable housing
• The role of green building in disaster recovery
• Green building and cultural heritage preservation
• Green building and historic preservation
• The role of green building in reducing urban heat island effect
• Green building and transportation planning
• The impact of green building on urban agriculture
• Green building and social equity
• The role of green building in reducing water pollution
• Green building and sustainable tourism
• The impact of green building on public health
• Green building and sustainable transportation
• The role of green building in reducing food insecurity
• Green building and sustainable forestry
• The impact of green building on wildlife conservation
• Green building and sustainable fisheries
• The role of green building in reducing plastic pollution
• Green building and sustainable waste management
• The impact of green building on climate adaptation
• Green building and sustainable energy access
• The role of green building in reducing soil erosion
• Green building and sustainable agriculture
• The impact of green building on marine conservation
• Green building and sustainable fisheries management
• The role of green building in reducing air pollution
• Green building and sustainable water management
• The impact of green building on biodiversity conservation
• Green building and sustainable land use planning
• The role of green building in reducing habitat destruction
• Green building and sustainable fisheries conservation
• The impact of green building on sustainable forestry
• Green building and sustainable agriculture practices
• The role of green building in reducing water scarcity
• Green building and sustainable energy production
• The impact of green building on sustainable transportation
• Green building and sustainable waste disposal
• Green building and sustainable land management
• The impact of green building on sustainable water resources
• Green building and sustainable energy consumption
• The role of green building in reducing energy poverty
• Green building and sustainable agriculture production
• The impact of green building on sustainable fisheries
• Green building and sustainable forestry practices
• Green building and sustainable land use management
• The impact of green building on sustainable water supply
• Green building and sustainable energy efficiency
• Green building and sustainable waste management practices
• The impact of green building on sustainable transportation systems
• Green building and sustainable land conservation
• Green building and sustainable fisheries management practices
• The impact of green building on sustainable forestry practices
• Green building and sustainable agriculture management
• Green building and sustainable energy production practices
• Green building and sustainable waste disposal practices
• The role of green building in reducing greenhouse gas

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Green Building - Free Essay Examples and Topic Ideas

Green building, also known as sustainable or eco-friendly building, is the practice of designing, constructing, and operating buildings in a manner that reduces their impact on the environment and promotes the health and well-being of their occupants. This includes using renewable energy sources, improving energy efficiency, reducing water usage, minimizing waste and pollution, and choosing environmentally friendly materials. The goal of green building is to create high-performance buildings that are both environmentally sustainable and economically viable.

• 📘 Free essay examples for your ideas about Green Building
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• ⚡ Simple & Green Building Easy Topics
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The Use of Green Materials for Sustainable Buildings Essay

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Introduction

The green house materials used for buildings, effects and benefits of green materials to the environment, works cited.

Today people are raising many concerns over the extensive direct impacts of industrialization on the environment for instance the building and construction directions, materials and designs. The resources in question include the energy, raw materials, water and even the waste materials.

The common unique challenge faced by the building experts, designers or owners include the need to meet building requirements and regulations such as accessibility, security, health and productivity. The most important need is to be environmental friendly.

At present, the economical growth is a great challenge to sustainable design but the approach used must be supportive to the environment by ensuring conservation. People will want to optimize a balance on benefits of expenditure, ecological, communal as well as human benefits while still meet the intended mission regarding proper infrastructure or facility mainly concerning comfort, productivity and safety.

These materials identify with sustainability of resources especially the scarce resources. McDonough and Braungart (17) Most of the green professional builders will advice one to have their premises installed with alternative waste water systems or solar energy systems. Other recognizable materials include the rainwater harvesting facilities, the compost lavatory systems, radiation barriers, toxicant terminators or controllers and environmental friendly concretes.

The designs and engineering innovations ought to entail the environmental sensitive structures for a better and sustainable future. The innovative designs of bridges in the last two decades have brought about some dramatic impact on the need to conserve the environment through the aspect of beauty. The recent news is the awarding of a landmark “Transamerica Pyramid building” at San Francisco as a ”LEED Gold” due to its green nature thus upgrading the city’s status.

The availability of fossil fuels is dwindling day by day. With many heated issues arising daily concerning of the environmental degradation such as global climate change, security of the resources and dependency on the energy sources.

Sustainable measures require utilization of renewable energy sources in all the amenities especially the infrastructure. Measures to save the environment are evident today, for instance, the world debate by the international representatives in Copenhagen to combat measures causing the climate changes such as gas emissions and greenhouses gas pollution.

The other benefit posed by the green designs entails water conservation. At present, water is increasingly becoming a scarce commodity and a sustainable building ought to have on site measures of reducing wastage through conservation measures such as harvesting, storage, efficient utilization, reuse and recycling measures.

Green materials used on the sustainable buildings reduce the environmental hazardous impacts such as the global warming effects, depletion of resources, and toxicities. The materials also have reduced negative effects to human health thus contributing to the worker’s and users’ safety, reducing the liability measures hence low insurance costs for the owners, reduces resources disposal costs and helps in attaining the environmental goals.

There is equally enhanced indoor quality of the environment for the user whereby, production or comfort is achievable. Sustainable building ought to utilize natural lighting due to the appropriate ventilations and excellent means of controlling moisture. Such structures have ways of avoiding use of materials with emissions and entails appraisals for materials that are able to mitigate “chemical, biological or radiological attacks.” (McDonough and Braungart, 7)

The use of green materials for sustainable buildings entails installation of operating and maintenance costs at the initial phases of design. This eventually increases productivity, lessens usage of scarce resources or energy expenses as a measure of preventing failures or optimizing maintenance requirements.

They also reduce on the life cycle of buildings or renovation costs. In “Cradle to Cradle, McDonough and Braungart argument is that, the issue of having opportunistic designs comes about as a result of the existing conflicts between manufacturing and the environment conservation measures.

McDonough, William and Braungart, Michael. Cradle to Cradle: Remarking the

Way we Make Things. (First Ed). New York, NY: North Point Press Publishers. 2002

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IvyPanda. (2018, June 29). The Use of Green Materials for Sustainable Buildings. https://ivypanda.com/essays/sustainable-building/

"The Use of Green Materials for Sustainable Buildings." IvyPanda , 29 June 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/sustainable-building/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'The Use of Green Materials for Sustainable Buildings'. 29 June.

IvyPanda . 2018. "The Use of Green Materials for Sustainable Buildings." June 29, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/sustainable-building/.

1. IvyPanda . "The Use of Green Materials for Sustainable Buildings." June 29, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/sustainable-building/.

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IvyPanda . "The Use of Green Materials for Sustainable Buildings." June 29, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/sustainable-building/.

A Review on Sustainable Building (Green Building)

9 Pages Posted: 17 May 2017 Last revised: 5 Jun 2017

Behnam Neyestani

De La Salle University, Civil Engineering

Date Written: 2017

Nowadays, the world faces many challenges and problems from climate change and global warming. Many scientific studies reported that different industries have huge roles to generate this condition. Specially, the construction industry has the most responsibility about these challenges on the earth. Doubtlessly, the utilization of inappropriate technologies, appliances, and materials in buildings have threatened the environment and human health today. So, there is a significant question, what is the appropriate way to solve these problems in construction industry? The engineers and technologists have realized the environmental problems are from using some technologies and materials in construction industry since over the past few decades. Scientists suggested the best way to overcome the aforementioned threats is to consider “sustainable” or “green” design for buildings. So, the main intention of sustainable building is to shift from harm to harmless technologies and materials in buildings. Thus, one of the main purposes of this study is to explore generally regarding sustainable technologies, standards, and materials, which help the buildings reduce consuming energy and resources, in order to generate the positive influences on people, nature, and society. Accordingly, “sustainable” buildings can be more friendly with environment and human, and use key resources, such as, energy, water, and materials more optimal than the conventional buildings. Furthermore, the study was to address the benefits of developing sustainability in buildings on different perspectives, based on the review and points out future directions of study.

Keywords: Sustainability, Sustainable (Green) Building, Green Technologies/Materials, LEED

Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation

Behnam Neyestani (Contact Author)

De la salle university, civil engineering ( email ).

2401 Taft Avenue Manila Philippines

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Green Building Essays

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• DOI: 10.1051/MATECCONF/201819304010
• Corpus ID: 158958200

Green Building in Moscow: Problems and Contradictions

• Published 2018
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The sustainability of tall building developments: a conceptual framework.

1. Introduction

1.1. what is a tall building.

• A tall building, a high-rise, or a tower is a 50 m+ (164 ft+) building.
• A skyscraper is a 150 m+ (328 ft+) building.
• A supertall or ultra-tall is a 300 m+ (984 ft+) building.
• A megatall is a 600 m+ (1967 ft+) building.

1.2. The Tall Building Construction Boom

1.3. critiques of tall building developments, 1.4. purpose of the study, 1.5. sustainability as a framework.

• Raise awareness of sustainable urbanization among stakeholders and constituencies, including the general public;
• Improve the collective knowledge of sustainable urban development through inclusive, open debates, sharing of lessons learned and the exchange of best practices and commendable policies; and
• Increase coordination and cooperation between different stakeholders and constituencies for the advancement and implementation of sustainable urbanization.
• A sustainable future is one in which a healthy environment, economic prosperity, and social justice are pursued simultaneously to ensure the well-being and quality of life of present and future generations. Education is crucial to attaining that future.
• In essence, sustainable development is about five key principles: quality of life; fairness and equity; participation and partnership; care for our environment and respect for ecological constraints—recognizing there are ‘environmental limits’; and thought for the future and the precautionary principle.
• “people” represents community well-being and equity;
• “profit” represents economic vitality; and
• “planet” represents conservation of the environment.

2. Social Dimension

2.1. family and community living.

• Residents fear that a family member or a loved child jumps from a window,
• Residents may fear masses of “strangers” that share the same building or floor,
• Residents fear a fire that may trap them in the building,
• Residents fear a devastating earthquake that will topple the building over them,
• Residents may fear becoming ill from communicable diseases generated by the masses who live there, and
• Post 9/11, high-rise residents fear that their buildings become terrorist targets

2.2. Disparity in Quality of Life

• Skew the housing market by raising price and decreasing affordability to the average residents,
• Strain the existing infrastructure,
• Cast undesirable shadows on street and public spaces,
• Absentee tenants of these buildings fail to support the local economy of businesses and social life of the neighborhood, and
• Tax avoidance by non-resident foreigners raises issues of fairness.

2.3. Human Scale

2.4. placelessness and the public realm, 2.5. fire incidences.

• 413-m (1356-ft), 101-story Princess Tower,
• 392-m (1287-ft), 88-story 23 Marina, and
• 380-m (1248-ft), 87-story Elite Residence.

2.6. Terrorist Attacks

2.7. window cleaning, repair, and maintenance, 2.8. construction workers, 2.9. people’s choice, 2.10. health and well-being, 3. economic dimension, 3.1. premium for height.

• A 10-mile-per-hour wind may move the tower two inches.
• A 50-mile-per-hour wind (which occurs about once a year) could move the tower about half a foot.
• A 100-mile-per-hour wind (which happens about once every 50 years) could move the tower as much as two feet [ 59 ].

3.2. Vertical Transportation

3.3. vanity height, 3.4. speculative investment, 3.5. building construction, 3.6. unfinished tall buildings, 4. environmental dimension, 4.1. energy and carbon emission, 4.2. urban heat island effect, 4.4. sea-level rise, 4.5. geological considerations, 4.6. bird collision, 4.7. waste management, 5. conclusions, 6. future research, acknowledgments, conflicts of interest.

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Al-Kodmany, K. The Sustainability of Tall Building Developments: A Conceptual Framework. Buildings 2018 , 8 , 7. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings8010007

Al-Kodmany K. The Sustainability of Tall Building Developments: A Conceptual Framework. Buildings . 2018; 8(1):7. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings8010007

Al-Kodmany, Kheir. 2018. "The Sustainability of Tall Building Developments: A Conceptual Framework" Buildings 8, no. 1: 7. https://doi.org/10.3390/buildings8010007

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Environmental Benefits of Green Infrastructure

• Social Benefits
• Economic Benefits

Improves Climate Resiliency. Climate change exacerbates existing pollution problems, the impacts of human activities, and environmental stressors that affect the nation’s land, air, and water, as well as the people who depend on these resources. The impacts of climate change affect people in every region of the country, threatening lives and livelihoods and damaging infrastructure, ecosystems, and social systems. Green infrastructure increases adaptive capacity in communities experiencing flooding, heat waves, and water quality challenges. Where site conditions allow, green infrastructure can be designed to soak water into the ground, which can increase the recharge rates of groundwater, helping to replenish groundwater reserves and maintain base stream flows. Increasing groundwater recharge helps mitigate the impacts of drought events —which are increasing due to climate change—as well as the effects of urbanization and increased impervious cover. Learn more about green infrastructure benefits for communities managing the effects of climate change on our Climate Resiliency page and about potential groundwater impacts on our Green Infrastructure Design page .

EPA resources:

• Building Climate Resiliency with Green Infrastructure webcast
• Green Infrastructure and Climate Change: Collaborating to Improve Community Resiliency (pdf)
• Green Infrastructure for Climate Resiliency (pdf)
• Building Resilient Communities with Green Infrastructure and Hazard Mitigation Planning webcast
• Creating Resilient Water Utilities (CRWU) webpage
• Estimating Monetized Benefits of Groundwater Recharge from Stormwater Retention Practices

Other resources:

• Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), FEMA Risk Map Nature-Based Solutions Guide 2021 (pdf)

Improves Water Quality. When stormwater falls on impervious surfaces such as asphalt and concrete, it can carry pollutants—including pathogens, nutrients, sediment, and heavy metals—to our streams, lakes, and beaches. Green infrastructure can be designed to capture and absorb stormwater and filter pollutants, which improves water quality. Green infrastructure can also help minimize the amount of stormwater that enters sewer systems, which can reduce combined sewer overflows in communities with a sewer system that carries both sewage and stormwater in the same pipe. View our EcoHealth Tool to see the relationship between a healthy urban ecosystem and water quality.

• Green Infrastructure Permitting and Enforcement Series Factsheet 6: Water Quality Standards (pdf)
• Greening CSO Plans: Planning and Modeling Green Infrastructure for Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Control (pdf)
• U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Urban Forest Systems and Green Stormwater Infrastructure (pdf)

Reduces Localized Flooding. Localized flooding can occur when the volume of stormwater runoff exceeds the available volume in storm sewer pipes. Localized flooding may become more frequent and intense by climate change and severe weather. Green infrastructure helps reduce localized flooding by capturing water from small, frequently occurring storm events and slowing down and temporarily storing stormwater. Green infrastructure is usually designed to absorb stormwater into the ground, further reducing the volume of stormwater entering pipes.

• Addressing Green Infrastructure Design Challenges in the Pittsburgh Region (pdf)
• Lessons Learned on Integrating Water Quality and Nature-based Approaches into Hazard Mitigations Plans webcast

Captures Water for Reuse. Communities can help conserve their potable water supply by installing green infrastructure that captures stormwater for reuse. Green infrastructure such as rainwater harvesting systems (e.g., rain barrels and cisterns) captures and stores rainwater so it can be used instead of valuable—and often scarce—potable water for things like outdoor irrigation or some indoor water needs.

• Municipal Handbook: Rainwater Harvesting Policies (pdf)
• Rainwater Harvesting: Conservation, Credit, Codes, and Cost Literature Review and Case Studies (pdf)
• Minnesota Stormwater Manual: Overview for Stormwater and Rainwater Harvest and Use/Reuse
• Water-Efficient Technology Opportunity: Rainwater Harvesting Systems

Improves Air Quality. Green infrastructure often includes vegetation as a key part of its design. Trees and other vegetation improve air quality by directly filtering air pollutants and fine particulate matter. Vegetation also slows down temperature-dependent reactions that contribute to smog (i.e., ozone pollution). Air pollutants can cause respiratory illnesses, including chest pain, coughing, and aggravation of asthma. The increased shade and evaporative cooling (evapotranspiration) provided by trees and vegetation also lowers ambient temperatures and surface temperatures of impervious areas, which can reduce the amount of electricity needed for cooling and thus reduce pollutant emissions from power plants. These benefits are especially important to communities designated by EPA as nonattainment areas for the 8-hour ozone standard due to ground-level ozone and fine particulates in the ambient air.

• Exploring the Link Between Green Infrastructure and Air Quality
• Estimating the Environmental Effects of Green Roofs: A Case Study in Kansas City, Missouri
• Recommendations for Constructing Roadside Vegetation Barriers to Improve Near-Road Air Quality
• U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Tree and Forest Effects on Air Quality and Human Health in the United States

Reduces Heat Island Effect. Developed areas typically have a lot of surfaces that absorb, retain, and then release heat, which leads to these areas having higher temperatures compared to more rural, undeveloped areas. This is called the heat island effect. Trees, green roofs, and vegetation can help reduce heat island effects by shading surfaces, deflecting radiation from the sun, and releasing moisture into the atmosphere. Shaded surfaces, for example, may be 20 to 45 °F (11 to 25 °C) cooler than the peak temperatures of unshaded materials. 1 For more details, visit our Green Infrastructure Heat Island climate resiliency webpage .

• Heat Island Compendium
• Heat Island Effect webpage

Improves Habitat Connectivity. The vegetation in green infrastructure, even small patches like green roofs, provides habitat for birds, mammals, amphibians, reptiles, and insects—especially pollinators. By improving water quality, green infrastructure also improves habitat both in streams and in larger waterways and other connected aquatic areas. Interconnected parks, urban forests, habitat patches, and conserved areas help facilitate wildlife movement and connect wildlife populations between habitats, sustaining populations that cannot survive in reduced or isolated habitat. For example, learn how the state of New Jersey is partnering with dozens of organizations to achieve habitat connectivity across their state by providing land use analysis tools and guidance for habitat protection, restoration, and wildlife passage systems.

• Green Infrastructure and Wildlife Conservation
• Going Wild: The Conservation Co-benefits of Green Infrastructure webcast
• Urban Habits, Green Roofs and Facades: A Habitat Template Approach (pdf)

1 Akbari, H., D. Kurn, et al. (1997). Peak power and cooling energy savings of shade trees. Energy and Buildings 25: 139–148.

• Green Infrastructure Home
• Types of Green Infrastructure
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• Using Green Infrastructure to Address Clean Water Act Requirements
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• Climate Resiliency & Green Infrastructure
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