1. PLANNING is the most important discipline to achieving sustainable outcomes

Lack of planning leads to following past — less sustainable — practices and leads to haphazard implementation that wastes materials and time. Excellent planning allows early consideration of sustainable materials and approaches, ensures time for ordering those materials and specifying the most efficient/effective method for installing them. For each hour of planning, several hours of implementation time can be saved thus achieving both financial and environmental sustainability.

2. Economic sustainability AND environmental sustainability are compatible and
desirable

When TOTAL costs/benefits over the life of a structure are taken into consideration, design/build decisions made for economic sustainability become significantly consistent with those for environmental sustainability. Be cautious not to look at just INITIAL costs as those are a poor measure of financial sustainability.

3. Minimize energy and other scarce resource consumption

The use of durable, long-lasting building materials, long-term maintenance strategies, and efficient energy systems and methods will ensure a long life and long-term value for the structure. Materials and systems that are also “upcyclable” further reduce waste, pollution, and toxins in the environment.

4. Nature maximizes efficiency and beauty

Design and construction methods that draw from nature and support its processes on site are beneficial to the well-being of the environment and ourselves, and also ties the building to its locality.

5. Reducing size and maximizing quality of a project generally gives the most
sustainable result

Maintaining or improving existing structures is far more sustainable than building new or adding on. But when building new or adding on, reduced size with savings applied toward better quality and more environmentally friendly results have tremendous sustainability impacts.

6. Innovative architectural design leads to sustainability...

...by enriching one's experience of light, context, materials, and craftsmanship, which will result in a passion to care for a structure, thereby sustaining it beyond average life spans.

7. Internal Air Quality (IAQ) is crucial to sustainable outcomes

Conservation of resources cannot be the only measure of sustainability since a healthful environment is required for human survival and ultimate longevity of a home.

8. Immediate reduction in Greenhouse Gas emissions...

...is crucial to minimize the financial costs and human suffering expected within 25-45 years. On 10/31/06, the Washington Post quoted from a report by Nicholas Stern, who heads Britain's Government Economic Service and formerly served as the World Bank's chief economist: "There's still time to avoid the worst impacts of climate change, if we act now and act internationally" ... "But the task is urgent. Delaying action, even by a decade or two, will take us into dangerous territory. We must not let this window of opportunity close." ... "Failing to curb the impact of climate change could damage the global economy on the scale of the Great Depression or the world wars by spawning environmental devastation that could cost 5 to 20 percent of the world's annual gross domestic product."

9. Minimizing hazardous materials generation...

... is important to sustainability. Hazardous materials generation can occur in all phases of a product or system from manufacturing and delivery to installation, use and disposal.

10. More than just materials determine how green a project is.

Even in the greenest of projects, an individual material may not be environmentally friendly, yet it's use may allow for maximizing overall benefits to the building or project. Conversely, it is entirely possible that only green materials are used in a project while the way they are used together does not benefit the environment. Buildings must be looked at as the complex group of systems they are, not just the materials that make them up.