The LEED rating system rates building construction designs depending on how environmentally friendly or how ‘green’ the building is ( Al-Ghamdi & Bilec, 2015) . Glass presents as a better building material due to its environmentally friendly features. The average person today spends about eighty percent of his time indoors. Therefore, heat and lighting present as some of the critical aspects of life which require a lot of consideration as well as regulation. Glass as a building material does not only make the environment safer but also comes with many other benefits. The modern glass-walled buildings, for instance, have sufficient lighting independent of electricity during the day ( Lin et al., 2016) . Glass as a building material used also helps conserve heat in buildings during cold weather or in cold places. At the same time glass walls also help keep excess heat out of buildings. By using glass instead of other natural resources as building materials, these precious and limited resources can be conserved. Adding glass to a building construction design can therefore improve the LEED rating of the building construction.
However, experts have also explained that using too much glass may lower some of the qualities mentioned above. For instance, too much glass may allow more heat loss in clod areas or climate. At the same time, more heat would be absorbed in warmer or hot conditions if too much glass is used. More glass may also allow more light penetration into a building.
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Effect of adding Glass on building materials
Glass is much costly as compared to the other regular building materials such as timber and cement. Glass, however comes with lots of benefits if used as a building materials. In this era, one of the greatest global concern is climate change and exhaustion of natural resources. Continued use and overreliance on natural resources as building material may rid the future generation of some of the current natural resources. Luckily, glass presents as an alternative material that can help reduce the strain on the naturally obtained building materials. In addition, glass is also environmentally friendly as it can easily be recycled and used. The release of used materials into the environment can, therefore, be minimized when glass is added or used as building material. By using glass as a major building construction material the unrenewable resources or building materials can be conserved. This way, glass does not only help conserve building materials but also helps keep the environment clean. This presents as the most critical reason as to why adding glass to a building construction design makes such a construction rate higher in the LEED rating system ( Karakhan, 2016) .
Effect of adding Glass, on Energy usage
Adding glass to a building construction design, as mentioned above, comes with more benefits. Averagely, people spend a lot of their time indoors, either working, attending business meeting, having a good time, among other day-to-day activities. Energy in form of heat and light is therefore required inside buildings. Energy consumption is quite high in regular buildings. In glass-walled buildings, however, there is no need of using electricity during the day for lighting. The glazed walls allow for the penetration of sunlight which is sufficient for in-house lighting during the day ( Mirrahimi et al., 2016) . This way, energy conservation regarding lighting is maximized. Other benefits of using glass in building construction include thermal comfort and control, aesthetic image of glass and its application in various climate conditions ( Aditya et al., 2017) .
Adding glass, as seen above may come with a lot of benefits with regards to conserving resources and energy. Using more glass in building construction reduces strain on natural building materials and also helps conserve energy in buildings. Such constructions score high in the LEED rating system. Adding or using a lot of glass, however, as mentioned, may also reduce the quality or efficiency of glass.
References
Aditya, L., Mahlia, T. M. I., Rismanchi, B., Ng, H. M., Hasan, M. H., Metselaar, H. S. C., ... & Aditiya, H. B. (2017). A review on insulation materials for energy conservation in buildings. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews , 73 , 1352-1365.
Al-Ghamdi, S. G., & Bilec, M. M. (2015). Life-cycle thinking and the LEED rating system: global perspective on building energy use and environmental impacts. Environmental Science & Technology , 49 (7), 4048-4056.
Karakhan, A. A. (2016). LEED-certified projects: Green or sustainable?. Journal of Management in Engineering , 32 (5), 02516001.
Lin, Y. H., Tsai, K. T., Lin, M. D., & Yang, M. D. (2016). Design optimization of office building envelope configurations for energy conservation. Applied Energy , 171 , 336-346.
Mirrahimi, S., Mohamed, M. F., Haw, L. C., Ibrahim, N. L. N., Yusoff, W. F. M., & Aflaki, A. (2016). The effect of building envelope on the thermal comfort and energy saving for high-rise buildings in hot–humid climate. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews , 53 , 1508-1519.
