AN OVERVIEW OF GREEN BUILDING PRACTICE IN TURKEY

misbe2011 Tracking Number 219

The building industry is responsible for a large part of the world’s environmental degradation as buildings converge in themselves major indexes of energy and water consumption, raw material employment and usage of land. Thus, green buildings, which are defined as resource-efficient and ecosystem-conscious structures designed with a holistic understanding of social and environmental responsibility, have become the flagship of sustainable development. Today, in several countries, there is a well developed green building practice that is used to improve and assess diverse aspects of a building such as site selection, energy, water, material consumption, waste production and pollution. Ongoing development of the sustainability phenomenon, as well as some pioneer green projects in Turkey, has brought on awareness and discussions regarding the green building practice in the Turkish architectural, engineering and construction (AEC) industry recently. In this paper, current green building practice, legislative framework and policies regarding green buildings have been analyzed and deficiencies in policies and statutory regulation in Turkey are determined to bring forward suggestions towards a more institutionalized development of green building practice. On the other hand, Singapore’s Green Building Masterplan and its key aspects have been overviewed as a best practice in terms of a planned and holistic approach in the quest for constituting a model for countries looking for a widespread adoption of green building practice in the near future like Turkey.