A green home is one which has minimal negative impacts on the environment. At its simplest this can comprise a shift in attitudes by the occupants to committing to recycling more, loft insulating and replacing appliances with energy efficient models. At the other end of the scale a green home could be designed as a fit for purpose piece of architecture with a carbon neutral design, solar energy production capabilities and constructed from low environmental impact materials. In other words a green home can be green from the offset or made green at a later date.

Many of the notions behind being green and having a green home is the attitudes and philosophies of the inhabitants. This is almost independent of the actual property and whether you are the owner or tenant. The commitment towards striving towards an environmentally friendly home is vitally important in becoming a more sustainable society. Making a commitment to becoming greener and having a green home is about what you can do to make a difference whether that be buying energy saving light bulbs or fitting a full photovoltaic solar energy system to the roof of your house. Long term incremental changes and commitment will have a greater positive impact than one large change or investment over a short period.

There is no right and wrong when it comes to having a green home, the important thing is to research what you can do and act on it. Constant re assessment and thought about minor changes will mean the evolution of your green home to eventually a state where it is as green and carbon neutral as possible.

If you are in the fortunate position to be able to make a radical change in order to make a green home from new there are a number of major themes which you need to consider. The first step in getting you dream green home is to identify a suitable location. An ideal green home would be located in an area of ‘recycled land’ or brownfield sites. These are area which have been in the past other land uses. For example a lot of brownfield sites are on the site of former heavy industry. This means that a site is located in an area which not taking from existing green land or natural environment such as is found in the green belt around city. It is also good to locate a property near to where you work and lead your everyday life to reduce energy consumption and associated environmental degradatation through commuting. Secondly, after location, the design and materials of your green home needs to be from a sustainable source or recycled.

Additionally, the materials for construction should be sourced locally. Thirdly, when considering turning a home green a very important consideration is energy and energy consumption. Energy to your green home should be provided from renewable sources such and if possible actually generated on your green home. There are many electricity microgeneration techniques to achieve this with solar panels and wind turbines currently the most popular.

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