Sustainable Buildings

Sustainability is a term used often today but is being defined in several different ways as follows:

• Something that can be produced using a minimal amount of finite resources and that requires little additional maintenance.
• Something that has a low environmental impact in its production and utilization.
• Sustainable development and sustainable building design creates an optimal relationship between people and their environments. More specifically, sustainable development should have the absolute minimal impact on the local, regional, and global environments while meeting human needs.
• Development that meets the needs of the current generation without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
• The capacity to maintain a certain process or state indefinitely.

In each of these commonly used definitions, sustainable design is defined as minimizing the environmental impact of a building within currently held parameters.

ESSEX has extensive experience with sustainable design issues and can offer our clients practical, cost-effective solutions that advance sustainability and increase building efficiency.