Thursday, April 23, 2009

Earth Day inspired post

As I've been exploring my career options and choices, I've noticed a lot of push to the new "green" way of life, which I think is excellent. My father has always been fairly environmentally friendly and I think I inherited some of that from him. One place they have really started to look at the way they have been doing this is my targeted industry for my career, construction. In speaking with a local architect, one of the most important things for all members of the industry is to gain Leed AP certification. This is a rating system designed to rate buildings on their sustainability and impact on the environment and is quickly becoming the industry standard. I think it's impressive that the industry is now starting to take responsibility for the way we have been building for the last 100 + years.

The area that I think is really interesting is working to make current buildings (particularly homes) more energy efficient and self sustainable. The government has lots of incentives to improve your homes energy efficiency, money towards buying new toilets and other appliances, rebates on buying solar energy, wind and geothermal systems for your home, and free energy saving items from union gas. I've been considering attempting to open my own business to consult with home owners on what they could be doing to improve their home environment and of course do the drawings for work required, but that seems like a huge undertaking at this point, so maybe in a few years.

4 comments:

Christielli said...

Then you could come and give a guest lecture to my environmental science classes! Woot!

rawbean said...

I just got my LEED AP two months ago!!

LEED for homes is just getting its footing in Canada. Have you checked out the Canada Green Building Council Website?

http://www.cagbc.org/

I'm listed in the AP professionals for interior design in BC. Okay I will calm down now.

You should do it - about 1 month of studying.

Christielli said...

When you going to blog again?? ;)

Unknown said...

How cool. I'm glad I found this.still looking for a great mechanical engineer any ideas?