Why sustainability is a must in envelope building maintenance?

Sustainability in the last decade has been a trending topic. And there is a good reason for that, with a little effort we can maintain the natural resources of this planet for longer. When you maintain a building, you are trying to give the tenants a more healthy environment to live or work in, reduce their daily costs and reduce the energy consumption levels to the minimum.

A COVID-19 pandemic recovery plan centred on green buildings could create almost 1.5 million jobs all across Canada by 2030 while helping to ensure our nation meets its climate targets, as reported by CaGBC.

Your building’s envelope is designed to waterproof and separate the interior of the building from the exterior conditions and is key in maintaining your building’s lifespan. Proactive renewal and early detection and repair will help achieve your building’s optimum lifespan and avoid spending millions on costly damages. 

Whether you build a new building or maintain one, sustainability is key, and using green energy has presented to be critical in order to protect the environment, boost the economy with more jobs driven by demand and create a sense of community of belonging and feel safe.

But to achieve that we need to examine the steps we need to take to live in sustainable and energy-efficient buildings.

What are the important elements to make your building energy efficient?

1. Insulation: If you have added the right materials and the right percentage of insulation during the construction of the building, you help future tenants to keep their houses warm for longer. Make sure there are no gaps in the structural envelope or in other words maximize their airtightness, to help boost the impact of the insulation.

2. Thermal Mass: When natural materials have been used for the building and its insulation for example water and concrete, they absorb, store, and release thermal energy and this way the building reduces energy consumption.

3. Natural light: Allow your building to have multiple windows or sun pipes in general, not only to allow for natural light to come in and reduce the use of lamps and electricity but also to help the building stay heated. For the second part, you need to use appropriate material and glass for your windows, to ensure double glazing and benefit from minimizing energy consumption.

4. Renewable Energy: There is a wide range of available technologies to choose from when it comes to renewable energy. Indicatively you can use solar photovoltaic panels, solar thermal panels, biomass boilers, ground-source or air-source heat pumps, and hydropower for electricity. Think about the area you live in and the climate characteristics and choose wisely.

So after the energy efficiency has been maximized during the design, and construction process how does that impact the environment?

The buildings and buildings construction sectors combined are responsible for over one-third of global final energy consumption and nearly 40% of total direct and indirect CO2 emissions, so we can draw the conclusion that by minimizing our building’s energy footprint collectively we can make a major positive impact.

Finally, let’s look at some statistics based on statista’s reports on reasons to go green.

• Lower Energy Use led 64% of people to request green homes in 2013.
• Lower Energy Use led 71% of people to request a green home remodel in 2013.
• In 2018, 65% of construction professionals stated that building green buildings lowers their operating costs.
• 35% of respondents said that reducing water consumption is an environmental reason to go to green buildings.

If you are thinking of remodelling your commercial property in order to go green and reduce your costs, we can help you with our building envelope renewal services. Contact us today to learn more.