Everyone is talking about green, and that includes green home concepts for building, remodeling and decorating your home. There are some basic concepts underlying all things green, so let's start there and then we'll keep adding new green terminology that we find.
You're welcome to send us suggestions too as this field is growing by leaps and bounds every day.
And if you want to learn a whole lot more about green home building, you can buy the National Green Building Standard used by builders.
Green Home Concepts
Green home concepts focus on the resources used to create a product, along with the processes for producing the product, i.e. organic food grown locally and purchased at your farmer's market is more green than organic food shipped in from another state or country.
- Perpetual Resources – are those not affected by human use, like sunlight and wind.
- Renewable (or Sustainable) Resources – refer to those that can be replenished using renewable processes like growing corn for ethanol, because you can harvest the corn and grow another crop.
- Non-Renewable Resources – have a fixed supply, i.e. fossil fuel like oil and natural gas. They're being used faster than they can be replaced through the natural processes that create these resources.
Another focus of the green movement involves changing our habits in terms of how we buy, use and through away materials. You might recognize some recycling efforts in your community but it's much more than this.
- Reuse – what you already own, i.e. convert old sheets and towels to rags for painting and cleaning … instead of buying paper towels.
- Reduce – what you buy as maybe you don't really need what our consumer economy is telling you to buy? Consider paper goods you might not need. Buy in bulk to reduce packaging you bring home.
- Recycle – before adding waste to our massive garbage dumps. Recycling means moving old kitchen cabinets to the garage, a local Habitat for Humanity ReStore or donating through FreeCycle.
