Global warming fears have influenced builders in Palm Beach County to turn to green building. PalmBeachPost.com reports that West Palm Beach-based Hedrick Brothers has hired a sustainable construction expert at its 125-employee company. Dale Hedrick acknowledges that building green isn't always as efficient as he'd like.
Finding responsibly harvested wood paneling for one project took two months longer than he'd hoped. Still, Hedrick says, green building boosts the cost of a structure such as EcoPlex by only 2 percent to 5 percent, and that outlay is quickly recovered from lower operating costs.
"To me, it's a stewardship issue, and it's the right thing to do," Hedrick says. "If it pays for itself, why wouldn't people want to do that?"
