TNJ Sustainability & Resilience Toolkit: Sustainability Solutions

Green Building

Green building is a set of design, construction, and operating practices that reduce or eliminate the negative impacts of development on the environment and human health. Green building helps achieve the critical goal of reduced energy consumption (the most effective way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions) and other environmental goals such as water conservation, indoor environmental quality, use of recycled materials, construction waste reduction, reduced auto use, tree preservation and native planting. Counties and municipalities in New Jersey and across the country are increasingly pursuing efforts to encourage green building practices, including through education, municipal facility projects and incorporating energy efficiency and other green building provisions into land use and development regulations.

Related TNJ Plan Focus Areas

Focus Area 6: Create vibrant places and neighborhoods that will attract and retain residents, workers and visitors
Focus Area 10: Enhance the resilience of the region’s communities and infrastructure
Focus Area 12: Improve health outcomes for our region’s residents
Focus Area 14: Manage water systems to improve water quality and supply

Implementation Strategies

Participate in Local Government Energy Audit

Participate in program that covers 100 percent of costs to examine energy consumption and identify energy efficiency measures.

Incorporate into development ordinances

Require or incentivize energy efficiency standards and other green building features in zoning and other development ordinances.

Apply green building practices to municipal facilities

Implement green building demonstration projects or adopt an ordinance requiring municipal facilities to achieve green building performance.

Promote green building among property owners

Raise awareness of best practices and existing incentives and implement local incentive program.

Encourage sustainable landscaping

Implement sustainable landscaping practices at municipal facilities and encourage them at private properties.

Enhance efficiency of municipal infrastructure

Deploy technologies such as sensors and data analytics to enhance the efficiency of infrastructure.

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