Do Internet technologies go hand-in-hand with green building in our digital age?

Orders for green building are up worldwide with research pointing to a significant increase of construction professionals who expect nearly 60 percent of their work to be green by 2015.

This greater demand for environmentally friendly projects also brings a need to manage, share and store large quantities of documents, not only to chronicle the lifecycle of a green build, but in a way that handles paperwork as efficiently as possible to advance goals related to the overall sustainability of a project.

A current driver in the business of green building revolves around client and market demand, and both green and lean building practices are becoming norms in a post-recession economy. Conserving energy and reducing carbon footprints, for instance, are major goals of the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED-certification programs.

For owners and builders, expectations may lean toward the cost benefit of using these digital project management tools to effectively deploy resources, such as construction materials, documents or key personnel during a green build.

A natural byproduct of managing green building projects via the Cloud is an automatic reduction in the financial and environmental costs of printing, shipping or storing physical "paperwork," contributing to a more sustainable solution altogether. For some, green building may be this year's business imperative or simply the right thing to do. Saving time and physical space is another consideration. For other organizations, perhaps it boils down to the bottom line.

For whichever reason, the direction of the marketplace is moving more builders toward green projects.