Every year, roughly one billion square feet of buildings are demolished and replaced with new construction in the United States, according to a new report from Preservation Green Lab, and that number is likely to escalate. That’s a lot of CO2 emissions and materials that could easily be saved. Since new buildings are generally more shiny and exciting though, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the greenest building is almost always the one that’s already standing. It seems like common sense, but now we have the hard data to back it up. According to the highly-anticipated report, it can take up to 80 years for a new, energy-efficient building to overcome the environmental impact of the construction process.
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