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Building Green Jobs in America

When posed with the question of what is the biggest consumer of energy in the United States, most people will probably point the finger at trucks and SUV's, but as it turns out, your home consumes far more energy than just about anything else. Don't feel too bad though, it's not just your home, it's the vast majority of homes and commercial buildings all over the globe. The building industry alone accounts for 30%-40% of all global energy usage from construction all the way to demolition. However a new trend in home building is taking the world by storm and that trend is green construction. Green construction, while it sounds simple enough, does entail a makeover of the whole cycle of building green. From site planning, to construction, to maintenance, all the way to demolition has to meet certain standards for being green.

The green revolution is not a particularly new idea though. Many people and companies started practicing green building during the 1970's due to all of the oil and resulting energy disruptions. Green buildings have come a very long way since they first made themselves known. There are now even standards set in place to make sure that people are actually designing and constructing homes that are truly green. One such standard is called L.E.E.D or the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. L.E.E.D offers many tiers of green design and construction that reflect the effort and energy savings that people put into their homes and businesses.

What will potentially make green housing so attractive is the price and the savings. A green house usually only costs approximately 1%-2% more than a conventional house, but will save almost 10 times the energy usage. With this rock solid resume, green housing and building construction will soon be a booming industry. Obviously the housing market has taken some huge its in the past few years and is not showing too many signs of recovery, but this might just be the jump start the housing market needs to get going. With green homes and business, construction companies can save money on materials and make a slightly better profit while other companies like power utilities sell less power to individual homes which will allow them to plug into more homes without building more power plants which creates more money for them as well. This all translates into more money not only in the homeowner's wallet, but more money for these companies as well.

When housing and construction can one again become lucrative and sustainable, companies will be forced to hire a much larger workforce leading to huge job creation for our economy. There will have to be more people to construct, inspect, help maintain, and design these new green homes and the only way that we can help buildings get even more green is by the innovation and creativity of a larger work force.

Green buildings and construction seem to be an obvious choice. With only slightly higher marginal costs to construct, but huge energy savings over a period of time, we could all be doing the earth, our economy, and even our wallets a favor by simply looking to green buildings.

Leed Certification Resources

*LEED AP Exam Guide: Study Materials, Sample Questions, Mock Exam, Building LEED Certification (LEED-NC) and Going Green
*LEED for New Construction Exam Flashcard Secrets: LEED Test Practice Questions & Review for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design Exam
*2009 Leed Ap Exam Guide: Study Materials, 800 Sample Questions, 10 Full Length Mock Exam, Building Leed Certification V2.2 (Leed-nc) (Leed NC 2.2)
*2009 Leed Ap N.c. New Construction Exam - 12 Full Length Sample Exams - 960 Questions

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