Best Practices In Sustainability: Reasons to Go Green

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According to the Environmental Protection Agency:

• Each year, nearly 170,000 new commercial buildings are constructed in the United States.
• In 2002, they accounted for 45.4 percent of total energy consumption and 48.8 percent of total electricity consumption.
• Commercial buildings alone comprise 17.5 percent of carbon dioxide emissions in the United States.
• Occupants of commercial facilities use 25.6 percent of the total water consumed in the United States; impermeable materials used to construct buildings replaces natural surfaces, creating wastewater run-off into nearby bodies of water.
• Americans spend an average of 90 percent of their time indoors, sometimes in environments where the air is 100-times more polluted than outdoors.