Green Term Defined: Carbon Neutral Building
Carbon Neutral Building is the process of taking into account measuring, reducing, and offsetting carbon energy used by the building. A typical carbon neutral building integrates passive design, high performance building envelope, energy-efficient systems, and on-site renewable energy.
In order to measure carbon neutrality the building must have system boundaries – meaning an understanding of what is being measured. Are building material manufacturing processes included? What about travel to and from the building during construction or post-construction? What parameters are most important should be carefully considered and transparent to the client.
Carbon Neutrality for buildings can be supplemented by purchasing of green power. However, this misses the intent in my opinion.
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