These days it is really important to embrace green ideas and build sustainably. Luckily, there have been a lot of eco-friendly technologies available to help us in being more sustainable. The problem is that there is a reputation in the construction industry that building sustainably is going to cost more money.
While there are some extra costs in some of the materials, there isn’t an overall increase in expenses when building green. It simply takes a few creative ways of building to keep the costs low. In this article, we will go over some of those ideas so you can build green and not lower your profit margins.
Overhaul your processes
To offset some of the extra costs of sustainable material, you can look for ways to cut some of the waste out of your operation. This is essential no matter what type of project you are doing as it can help you increase profits. However, when your margins are looking smaller than usual, you should look into ways to save money.
There are surely areas within the company where there is waste happening. It could be in labor costs, redundant administrative tasks, or wasteful practices. The best way to understand where cuts can be made is to dive into the data and see how your spending and processes are aligned. Good contract management construction software can help you see this data clearly so you can make your moves quickly.
Use energy-efficient equipment
The equipment used to build can be one of the biggest ways to save when you use energy-efficient models. For instance, the fleet for your supervisors should be electric so there are savings in fuel that are very easy to implement. Although heavy machinery is more of a challenge, there are ways to make sure that they are energy efficient and sustainable.
In fact, there are new electric vehicles like dump trucks and other heavy equipment that are coming onto the market. Since electric vehicles have more torque than diesel. With advances in battery technology, many are able to get through the entire workday on a charge.
Plan it well
One reason that building green tends to be more expensive is that the building is not planned properly. When a building is going to be green, many companies make the mistake of planning as usual and then adding green materials. This doesn’t lower the cost because there are many missed opportunities during the planning process to make it cheaper.
From the very beginning if the architects, engineers, and planners come together they will make designs that use passive building processes to help it be greener and this cuts down considerably on the cost. For instance, the orientation combined with the use of windows can heat and cool the building without needing a lot of HVAC equipment and that brings down the costs by quite a bit. In other words, the right strategy is more important than just the sustainability of the materials used.