environmental sustainability

The importance
A green building is one that has been designed to have environmentally friendly conditions which efficiently use available resources throughout its designed life. In other words, green buildings conserve the environment and natural resources by using little water and energy, have less waste generation and a healthy living space compared to our conventional existing buildings.

Green structures have been adopted purposely to minimise wastage of existing scarce resources like water and energy, eradicate environmental pollution and degradation that causes diseases. Also, it safe guards the health of the residents in those buildings. This is contrary to the concepts that are used in constructing our conventional buildings, that is to say, being economical, attaining utility, being comfortable and increasing durability of the structure.Although the concept of green buildings is slowly being adopted in Uganda, in other countries like Australia, United Kingdom, United States of America and Switzerland, the governments are already advocating for them and laws are in place to guide the construction of these buildings.

In India, the Green Building Council exists. In United States of America, the International Green Construction Code is one of the codes used, in Italy, the Green Building Council also exists. These codes came in place due to high environmental pollution, environmental degradation, and lack of sustainability, among others.
According to Mr Pascal Kabandize, an architect with Infrastructure Design Forum, a lot of energy is wasted in Uganda, for instance, the energy used to light flourescent tubes is offices is less than the energy lost as heat in the bulbs’ chalk.