Sustainable Building Regulator

Are you interested in designing buildings? Have you ever thought about how many of the buildings in your hometown were probably built by people who are older now and didn't necessarily consider their environmental impact? This method of construction is unsustainable and can have a severe negative effect on our environment. Fortunately, sustainable building regulators make a career out of evaluating the environmental accountability of buildings and developing measures to increase the number of sustainable buildings in our society.

Personal Connection

Sustainable building regulators inspect the environmental impact of buildings to ensure they perform to many green building standards. They also develop methods of rewarding building owners for their efforts, incentivizing the production of sustainable architecture:

Are you interested in design?
Are you interested in conservation?
Are you interested in sustainable technologies?
Do you want to help reduce the impact humans have on the environment?
Do you want to help keep people happy and healthy?

Other Connections

While sustainable building regulators are becoming an instrumental part of the building process, the career may not be your dream job. Look at some other, closely related occupations that you may find more appealing:

Becoming an architect and designing beautiful and functional buildings and structures

Becoming an urban farming specialist and collaborating with green building specialists to add value and efficiency to urban buildings

Working as an energy consultant and designing energy-related projects to cut down on energy use

Becoming an engineer and developing new implementations for sustainability practices within buildings

Becoming a corporate sustainability strategist and developing corporate strategies for addressing company-wide sustainability

STEM Connection

Here are some of the ways that new and emerging technologies are helping to make buildings more sustainable:

Self-powering buildings facilitated by unprecedented access to solar and wind energy:

The idealized "green building" would be entirely self-sufficient, and with the newfound accessibility of renewable resources, this may become a common occurrence. In addition to complying with many other green building standards, self-powering buildings employ extensive solar paneling or wind turbine systems and, in some cases, have a net positive energy output and give energy back to the grid. Read more.

Building using biodegradable materials:

When building, it can be easy to overlook the effect that a structure will have on the environment as it starts to deteriorate. Historically, buildings haven't been designed with this sort of thoughtfulness, and close to 80% of material from demolished buildings ends up in landfills. Fortunately, a new wave of biodegradable materials is making its way into the minds of designers. Some of the more exciting biodegradable materials include bamboo, which is durable, highly flexible, and fast-growing and bioplastics, which bear as much utility as ordinary plastics but decompose at a rate comparable to paper. Read more.

Cool roofs and electrochromic smart glass:

Another way to save energy is by using technologies like cool roofs and electrochromic smart glass to regulate a building's internal temperature better. Cool roofs work by reflecting heat off the roofs of buildings, lowering their heat absorption, and lessening the energy consumption of air conditioning systems. Likewise, electrochromic smart glass works by selectively shutting out solar radiation using tiny sensors. This technology allows the user to change the window's permeability based on their desires. Read more.

Efficient water use and recirculation:

Green buildings excel at efficiently reusing water. Many innovations in water circulation and allocation contribute to making green buildings highly efficient. These innovations include advanced rainwater harvesting systems, grey-water reuse for irrigation, and water conservation fixtures for cutting down on water use through plumbing. Read more here.

IoT smart devices are politely encouraging us to cut down on our energy consumption:

Smart appliances, especially in place of traditional gas-powered kitchen appliances, can help save on energy costs and reduce a building's carbon footprint. Devices connected to the IoT also help inform consumers' daily decisions about resource consumption and energy use and promote efficiency and ease of use in several other ways. Read more.

Journeys to Becoming a Sustainable Building Regulator

The path to becoming a sustainable building regulator may seem like a faraway dream, but did you know you can start on that path while in high school?

Read about one woman continuing to pursue a career in sustainability management:

Amy Glawe works as a sustainability manager at a forward-thinking plastics manufacturing plant. Originally from a small town in Illinois, Amy obtained her bachelor's degree in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin. She began working in plastics shortly after. She hadn't planned on pursuing her master's, but when she discovered that she could go for a sustainable management degree online, she quickly changed her mind. "I thought, I really want to do this. Sustainability is my passion." Online learning is becoming a good option for higher education and is accessible from anywhere in the world at your own pace. Amy, busy with two kids and a full-time job, took courses one at a time and finished her master's degree in less than four years. She enjoyed the process of learning about the varying perspectives of her classmates and how they were thinking about sustainability as it pertained to their backgrounds and business plans. Currently, Amy is passionate about her job as a sustainability manager, where she presents company leaders with strategies for reducing energy consumption and waste. She hopes to continue her prosperous career in sustainability and use her position to share knowledge with future generations.

Articles, Videos, Podcasts of Interest

Read an article about the positive impact green buildings have on their inhabitants:

Read this interview with sustainable architect Amanda Sturgeon about the design of green buildings:

Watch a TED talk by architect, Dong-Ping Wong, about 'Productive' architecture, a version of sustainable architecture that gives back to the environment:

Watch Now

Read an article about the disproportionate amount of energy used by the United States:

Fun Facts

Some interesting trivia about sustainable construction:

High Demand:

America makes up just 5% of the world population but uses 17% of the world's energy. Read more here:

Types of Water:

Water, as it pertains to plumbing, exists in three states. Clean water (faucet) that can be used for drinking or cooking, gray water (shower/sink runoff), which is safe to recycle, and black water (toilet), which is not reusable or drinkable under any circumstances and has come into contact with solid waste. Read more here:

Decreasing Energy Use:

Heating and cooling account for close to 50% of the average home's energy usage, which is down 8% from previous years. Read more here:

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