In a breezy Casey Academic Center Forum, interested students and faculty joined the Green Club for a discussion with Mark Bundy, member of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources Green Building Initiative Program. A member of the DNR for 27 years, Bundy received his doctorate from the University of Maryland in resource economics. He received a job in the DNR helping with its Smart Growth Program, and eventually ended up heading the Green Building Initiative, a program designed to promote the use of green buildings in the state and across the country.
Green buildings are structures designed to make the most of the environment.
They are to be more conservative in the amount of energy needed to run them, and the money needed to sustain them. Green buildings exemplify the new pattern of thinking that is needed to accomplish this goal. A building meeting LEED criteria must exhibit such things as proper water efficiency, energy and atmosphere conservation, and high indoor air quality. Maryland, in addition to a few other examples of acceptance of green buildings, proves to be the exception to the rule when it comes to green building legislation. The building codes and local governments have not kept up with the industry.