What is an eco friendly house you ask?

Building green is about the way your home is designed, built and how it operates in order to reduce its impact on the overall environment whilst creating a healthy and enjoyable environment to live in.

Strategies for building green include water and energy efficiency, utilising renewable energy, using sustainably sourced products and materials and improving indoor air quality.

So why would you want to build green? The buildings we live and work in have a profound impact on our natural environment, the economy, and our health.

Buildings account for:

• 40% of our total carbon emissions

• 33% of all product and material resources consumed

• 42% of our total energy consumed

• 12 % of our drinking water used

• indoor air quality that can be up to 5 times worse than outdoor air.

n the past, the building industry has been inherently wasteful, lagging behind many other industries when it comes to sustainability.

But statistics such as those above provide the impetus for everyone involved in the building industry to start carrying a greater responsibility and adopt more sustainable building practices.

However, for green building to succeed it has to be mutually beneficial, there has to be something in it for consumers, as well as for the environment.

This is definitely the case. The win for consumers is a more modern, healthy and energy and water efficient home.

A well designed eco friendly home should reduce your energy use age by around 60% and your water use age by around 30%, these translate into real savings in running costs. Research indicates that homes that incorporate environmental initiatives are selling more quickly and commanding higher prices than those that don’t. Also, the issue of the up front cost of building green has been overstated for far too long.

Achieving the energy and water savings noted above would add no more than 5% to the cost of construction. And finally, an eco friendly home is simply a better house to live in. An eco friendly home uses products and materials that contribute to creating a healthier indoor environment for you and your family.

The time to start seriously adopting greener building practices is now, if we don’t, our children and our children’s children are going to ask us, why we didn’t do so when we had the chance to.

For more information visit www.yourabode.com.au/