The construction and operation of buildings has a major ecological impact on the planet. For example 50% of the UK’s energy is used to heat, light and cool buildings. A further 10% is used to manufacture and transport materials to building sites. This compares to the energy consumed by personal transport (which gets all the publicity at the moment) at around 20%.

However, it is important not to get distracted by single ‘flavour of the moment’ issues such as the current obsession with trying to make buildings carbon neutral. This enables us to get seduced by ‘easy’ solutions such as offsetting (buy a few trees) or techno add-ons (buy a ‘toy’ wind turbine). These may make us feel less guilty, but they offset the symptoms rather than tackle the cause of climate change.

Lets think about buildings holistically, and tune them with the planet with three points of focus; energy, resources and health, and consider their impact at the global, local and building scale.

Energy
We can use materials which require little energy to manufacture and transport, as well as reducing our energy use. This instantly reduces global energy consumption now, as well as reducing building energy consumption in the future. This could mean using UK grown timber, rather than steel; local stone, rather than stone imported from the other side of the world and insulation made from recycled newspaper or sheeps wool. To reduce energy in use, we should be super insulating our buildings, making them as air tight as possible, and designing their shape and orientation to get maximum useful benefit from solar gain and effective cooling by natural ventilation.

Resources
We can minimise our use of the planet’s precious and finite resources. Many building materials can be replaced by products made from renewable resources such as hemp, cork and lino. Instead of heating our buildings with finite oil or gas, we could use locally obtained renewable woodchips – which also keeps money in the local economy.

The most effective ways of reducing water consumption are often the least exciting – mending leaks, installing low-flush WCs, waterless urinals and spray taps, having showers rather than baths, and in new installations minimising pipe runs and using micro-bore pipes.

Health
This is the least understood, but one of the most important aspects of ecological building. Buildings affect health at every level of environmental scale. Paint, varnish, flooring and other materials often give off harmful fumes. During the manufacture of a typical modern paint, as much as 90% of the raw material (finite oil) may become pollution waste. Organic alternatives use only natural plant oils and pigments, and any waste is composted back to the land in a sustainable cycle. Organic paints also help to create a healthy environment within the building and avoid ‘sick building syndrome’.

Rainforests are being cut down at an alarming rate, due largely to the West’s use of tropical hardwoods – this may be causing a greater rise in CO2 levels than burning fossil fuels – we are destroying the lungs of our precious planet! Instead use UK grown, certified timber.

So, given that we many of us own, and all of us live and work in buildings, we are in a prime position to reduce our impact. Whenever we redecorate, furnish or extend our own homes, wherever we are able to influence the design and construction of our schools, offices and community buildings – we should grasp the opportunity with enthusiasm.

In the same way that buying and eating local organic foods both improves our personal health and reduces our negative impact on the environment, so creating energy efficient buildings made from natural sustainable materials enhances our health and well being, and helps to reduce our ecological footprint.