Summary Draft 2 of Green Building Materials by Calrecycle

The article by Calrecycle, ‘Green Building Materials' (2023), briefly introduces the benefits of incorporating green building materials into buildings, the selection criteria, and the procedures that lead to the selection of products. Green buildings have many advantages for the environment. Some of the advantages include using renewable sources which leads to lesser electricity and utility bills. In addition to that, the life cycle cost of the building will be reduced by a tremendous amount. There are also other advantages such as better well-being of occupants and freedom in the design of the building. Next, the selection criteria are separated into five categories: ‘Resource efficiency, indoor air quality, energy efficiency, water conservation, and affordability ‘(para.7). These factors are what building owners consider before selecting appropriate green building materials for their building. Lastly, building owners use ‘research, evaluation, and selection’ (para.14), to narrow down the products that achieve the environmental goal of the building. To be able to select the most suitable material, various tests must be conducted to collect sufficient data on the efficiency of the product. After this step, the data will be evaluated to further cut down the product options. Finally, in reference to the options' evaluation score, the product with the ‘highest environmental attributes’(para. 19) will be chosen.

Green buildings have both pros and cons. Many argue that green buildings' initial cost is too high and that green buildings need to be maintained more than normal buildings. Despite these two downsides, the advantages outweigh the disadvantages of green building.

The article by Dr Samar, 'Is It Affordable to Build Green?'(2020), states that 'Green Building is often perceived as an unaffordable building practice option'(para.1). This is due to the fact that