Although the Green Building Movement has the reputation for being an environment-saving construction initiative, there is a general perception that green buildings are very expensive to build than standard buildings. This reputation often becomes a deterrent that prevents many building owners and painting companies from constructing buildings with ecologically-friendly features.
The perception was true at the initial stages of the green initiative. The cost was due to the relative inexperience of building designers, architects, painting companies and the building sector as a whole when it comes to green building design. In the days when green building techniques are highly-experimental at best, it often took more time to incorporate green features to the conventional building design.
Even green building materials are hard to source initially. For example, coating systems used by painting companies used to be more expensive. Painting companies find that coating products were not so available or abundant. This is because only a few manufacturers produced low- or zero-VOCs emitting formulations before. With so few suppliers, the coating supplies are limited, raising their prices because of the scarcity.
But that all changed as the building industry grew in experience. The designers learned to design green features at less costs. Material sources improved in technology to produce more and better green products. The painting companies improved their application techniques. At present the cost of building and maintaining environment-safe buildings has decreased significantly because of this progress.