"...[I]ncreased demand for sustainable buildings will... drive design and construction toward European approaches and toward integrated design... In recent years, sustainable projects approved by the U.S. Green Building Council have fetched higher rents, demonstrated greater occupancy and had higher values than competitors... It would be foolish (now) to build a building that is not LEED certified... Germans and Scandinavians are adopting methods of insulating commercial and residential buildings that exceed LEED platinum energy savings. The newest techniques, he said, emphasize energy recovery over energy production. One system, invented in Germany, called Passive House, focuses on super-insulating interior spaces, using high-performance windows, passive solar and circulating air with an energy recovery ventilator. The system calls for creating an airtight interior that acts like a thermos bottle... The additional costs for the system are from 5 to 10 percent of the total construction cost... the airtight concept had been tossed around in Europe since the 1970s but that the energy recovery ventilator is what makes the new system work. The ventilator exchanges heat from exhaust air and passes it to fresh air from the outside. The system transfers heat to fresh air without mixing the airstreams... an enthalpy wheel is another type of energy recovery ventilator. The wheel can be effective for heating and cooling... European countries tend to lead the U.S. in sustainable building practices because Europeans don’t like to waste resources.... You go to a country like Sweden and find they’re on the pathway to get off imported oil by 2020 and Germans want to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050..."

Future green construction may follow European models | Sam Bennett | Portland Daily Journal of Commerce | January 26, 2009