Three good reasons to go "Green" inside the house

　
Green is the colour associated with balance and harmony. It is the colour of kindness, compassion, caring and sharing. Green is comforting and stress relieving and is also the colour of nature.
Creating a greener environment inside the house is about respecting the environment and ourselves by creating a healthier home.
An environmentally responsible design, is a concept that embraces a design that is both caring about nature (sustainable) and that addresses safety and welfare of the people in the building.
What we do individually in our homes is the beginning of a change at a bigger scale.
Amongst all the benefits we get by going green inside the house, I have chosen to talk about the following three: our health, the environment and adding value to our home
　
1. Our health

It is commun to associate pollution with the proximity of a plant releasing heavy smokes or a busy road;but it has been shown that Indoor Air Quality is very often worse compared to the quality of the air outside the house.
Some diseases and syndromes are clearly associated with a poor indoor air quality, such as the sick building syndrome (1) or building related illness (2). The most obvious polluting sources of the air in our houses include tobacco or wood smoke, malfunctioning stoves, radon pollution, dust, etc.

To these sources, we can add many materials used in our homes and which, were once consider healthy, have proved to be a real threat to our health (asbestos, lead pipe and paint). It is difficult to identify these unseen harmful component inside goods that are part of our daily life (a new piece of furniture for example) and thought to be safe. For instance carpets and furniture adhesives can contain some toxic ingredient that will emit gassious toxic molecules for a long time after they have been introduced into the house. Formaldehyde is often contained in furnishing and building products and is considered to be a possible human carcinogen.
This problem is exacerbated by the fact that our houses are more and more air tight. A good ventilation system will renew the air inside the house and helps to keep our environment safe. And of course common sense dictates us keeping all these toxic component out of the house.
　
2.The environment.

Since the first industrial revolution started in the mid1800s, our impact on the environment has increased a lot, leading to the extensive use of the planet resources, deforestation, the loss of bio-diversity, pollution of the air, water and the ground, climate change, to mention only a few.
The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA), a comprehensive analysis produced by 1360 scientists in 2005, concluded that the health of the world’s ecosystems was at significant risk: "Human activity is putting such strain on natural functions of Earth that the ability of the planet’s ecosystems to sustain future generations can no longer be taken for granted"
The industrial production of household goods, the energy used to build houses, the energy used in the houses, the use of water, increasing amount of waste production are contributing to the overall environmental decline.

The Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) the most authoritative international voice on the science impacts of climate change, produces a report every 5 years reflecting the state of knowledge on climate change. This research review of scientific literature represents international consensus among the more than 2000 scientists involved in preparing the report. The summary report, Climate change 2007, provided solid, scientific evidence that human activity is affecting climate change through global warming.

We must not forget about waste management. At the end of their use, products are either thrown into landfills or burnt. In each case it results in either air, ground or water pollution. To reduce the amount sent to landfill, recycling has been introduce for paper, glass, plastics... Recycling is a solution to resource depletion, but improvement must be made as materials are unfortunately too often down-cycled (3), with the result of ending up in a landfill a bit later anyway.

By going green inside the house, we accept this environmental problem and take the responsibility for reducing our use of energy and of the plane’st resources. This doesn’t mean that our houses will have to adopt a "Hippy" look or that we will have to remove all the modernity. It only means that we have to think a bit further and use the resources differently.
For example, McDonough and Braungart (4) propose a new vision and model in which products are manufactured according to their life cycle as a whole, with control on each ingredient, and in a clean manufacturing context. No toxicity is released in the environment or during the product’s production life. When the product’s use is over, it is dismantled and each part re-used as a raw material. This is when waste becomes food, food for the production line, waste is no more waste, but used for the fabrication of a brand new product, over and over.
Insulation, light, responsible use of water, energy saving... are all part of a green home.

3. Adding value to the home

When we go green inside the house, we decide to create a healthier environment, free of toxic components, full of light, with a good ventilation and insulation systems, using energy efficient appliances. We have therefore created a healthy and comfortable house, a safe home where it is easy to feel good and relax. We also have dramatically improved the Energy rating of the house. This beauty, comfort and efficiency have added value to the house demonstrating that there is also an economic reason to go green. Not only the house will sell or rent better, but your energy bills will dramatically be cut down.
　
　
As a Navajo proverb says "We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children".
It is our responsibility to take care of our environment whether it be on a global scale (our planet) or on a smaller scale (our house), raise our children in a safe place and give them back what belongs to them and their future.
In a next post I will guide you as what to consider when we want to go green in your house.





written by Emmanuelle Lemoine


Footnotes


1 Sick building syndrom: A building whose occupants experience acute health and/or comfort affects that appear to be linked to time spent therein but where no specific illness or cause can be identified.
2 building related illness: A diagnosable disease or health problem whose cause and smptoms can be directly attributed to a specific pollutant source within a building (e.g. Legionnaire’s disease) Symptoms do not diminish or abate when living th building.
3 Down-cycling: recycling a material for use in the production of a different product that will not be recyclable (i.e. extends the period of useful life, thereby delaying relegation to a landfill or incineration).
4 Braungart and McDonnough "Cradle to cradle re-making the way we make things" Vintage