Overview

The Green Economics module for Safety Net Clinics provides you with the ability to consider the benefits of using green or sustainable materials and processes in the design of the SNC. As with all the cost-benefit modules in this website, the focus is on supporting preliminary design decisions, such as;

• "Can we afford to seek LEED certification for this facility?"
• "In today's dollars, how much can we save on energy costs if we go green?"

The analyses that you can run in this module will allow you and your team to have a more informed discussion with your stakeholders and those who will be designing the facility.

The Green module asks how much you will spend on green, the size of your facility, and estimates of operations and maintenance costs incurred on top of traditional building materials and processes. You enter expected inflation rates for the costs and benefits. You also enter the discount rate, a term used in capital budgeting that refers to the cost of capital. In other words, if you're faced with a set of projects having different expected returns on investment and just letting the funds sit, what is the lowest rate at which you would invest in one of these projects instead of letting the money sit in a low-risk interest-bearing account?