About Greener Homes & Buildings

The Greener Homes and Building Group was established in 2003 to encourage sustainable building and living.

Building and buildings have a profound effect on the environment as well as the health of the builders, painters and subsequent inhabitants.

The development, use and maintenance of buildings result in the consumption of 6 tonnes of building material/person/year in the UK (Building Research Establishment 1996). Such figures illustrate the very large quantity of resources that are consumed by the construction and related industries.

Material and component selection has to consider overall resource use, the limits to the stock of raw materials and the access to resources by future generations.

Chemically-sensitive people are particularly aware of how modern buildings make us sick, but it is likely that we all suffer from chemical-sensitivity syndrome to different degrees. Even the mainstream press often carry stories of cancers and respiratory problems linked to formaldehyde-based glues, plastics, paints, asbestos and fibreglass...

Iron, steel and reinforced concrete have taken over from timber for all large-scale structural work - largely because energy has become cheap. However, weight for weight, timber is much stronger than steel. It takes nine times more energy to do the job in steel than in timber.

Sustainable processes and materials ideally fulfil several criteria:

Generally speaking, materials come from resources that are renewable, and not from those that are being depleted or are endangered.

The manufacture, use and disposal of sustainable materials does not cause unnecessary damage to the environment, nor does it consume excessive amounts of energy or result in unsatisfactory quantities of waste.

Finally, sustainable processes and products are healthy: they do not pose health risks to people or to the environment.

Mid Wales has a long established expertise in this field, is rich in natural resources and has a growing small business and skills base - 50 companies have registered with us for the supply of materials and services in this field.