Healthcare Sector Lags in Green Building Practices

$28 billion worth of healthcare facilities are under construction in the United States here in 2007, but only six percent of those buildings will go green. In a report that was recently released by McGraw-Hill in cooperation with Turner and USGBC, practitioners cited a variety of factors for this unacceptably low statistic in such an enormous sector of the construction industry. While a majority of the participants in McGraw-Hill’s report “perceive[d] an energy cost savings of more than 10% in green facilities over traditional buildings,” seventy-six percent agreed with the statement that “green building creates an unjustifiable cost premium,” eight-two percent agreed with the statement that “we are not convinced on the ROI from green building,” and fifty-seven percent of respondents stated that “lack of knowledge about green techniques [is] the biggest obstacle to green building.” The American population is aging in an unprecedented fashion, and it’s absolutely imperative that industry professionals work to address- and ultimately dispel- these perceptions about green building in the healthcare context as the industry continues to expand dramatically over the course of the next decade.