On the ever growing journey to create a greener world, Architecture firms across the globe are raising the stakes in green design implementations.

Sustainability is being taken to new heights across an array of cities and countries, with New York and San Diego standing amongst a growing number of jurisdictions looking to expand the scope of energy and water use requirements in new construction projects.

San Diego is now dedicated to all new buildings being created to reach net energy standards. Meaning each new build should theoretically produce more energy than it consumes. 

Requirements surrounding energy efficiency are now tougher to comply with than ever. Proposals and strategies that used to be optional are no longer so, and buildings have to account for certain codes regarding energy usage if we are to tackle the energy crisis successfully.

Staff members of FX Collaborative, an architecture firm in New York City, are pro-actively involved in a variety of task forces that relate to green building codes and ethics. A recent focus has been on energy use intensity and the city has passed a law that grades a buildings performance, requiring the building’s owner to post an energy grade into public view. This will allow for the buildings efficiency to be publicly known and noted, which should hopefully help older, more energy consuming buildings to contemporize their features.

Specific goals for future design projects include aspects of energy regulations, such as solar carve outs – which set goals for solar panels to generate certain amounts of Eco-friendly electricity. A variety of cities are now using modern standpoints as realities, over guidelines, to implement a green future sooner rather than later.

The District of Columbia have proposed an ambition that will see the equivalent of 5% of its buildings energy consumption to be generated completely by solar before 2032.

Building Green is no longer a simple matter of discussion. In the policy climate of the modern day, Building Green extends long beyond the reduction of a building or structures carbon footprint, and emits into the greater catalysts of larger conservations in terms of both water and energy efficiency.

With so many architectural firms already taking huge steps to create a better future through green buildings, it would seem that the next decade could show immense success in aiding the world to recover from generations of global damages.

This is refreshing news for an industry that has remarkable potential to help determine a stable environmental future.