Green Links

US Green Building Council

The U.S. Green Building Council is a non-profit community of leaders working to make green buildings available to everyone within a generation.

U.S. Department of Energy – Building America

A variety of useful. Building America provides the results of its research to help builders improve the quality and performance of new and existing homes throughout the country.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – LEED

LEED is a third-party certification program and the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. LEED gives building owners and operators the tools they need to have an immediate and measurable impact on their buildings’ performance. LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.

Tax Incentive Demonstrates Commitment to High Performance Homes

We now have three forces that will gradually increase buyer interest in high performance homes: steadily increasing energy bills; quality advantages (better comfort, healthier air, more durable construction, etc.); and energy tax credits.

Smart Home Owner: Better Home, Better Planet

Green Options Media’s growing network of environmentally-focused blogs provides users with a broad spectrum of information on and direction for making more sustainable choices in their lives.

Greener Buildings

Greener pastures for building development.

EnviroLending

The good news is that all home buyers who qualify for a home mortgage also qualify for an Energy Efficient Mortgage!

National Association of The Remodeling Industry – Green Certified

Professionals within the remodeling industry

HPH – Builder’s Challenge

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has posed a challenge to the homebuilding industry – to build 220,000 high performance homes by 2012. The initiative is called the Builders Challenge, and homes that qualify must meet a 70 or better on the E-Scale. The E-Scale is a scale that allows homebuyers to understand – at a glance – how the performance of a particular home compares to that of others.

The Future of High Performance Building

Today’s high-performance green buildings are a significant improvement over the conventional buildings of the past. They consume significantly less energy, materials, and water; provide healthy living and working environments; and greatly improve the quality of the built environment. Although notable progress has been made in building performance, for the most part contemporary green buildings use existing materials and products; design approaches, and construction delivery systems. Ecological design, perhaps the key concept in creating high-performance buildings, is in its infancy and sorely needs articulation to be able to create truly green buildings. The concept of green building materials needs to be better defined and methods for their evaluation need to be developed. The role of nature in buildings is another one of the key areas needing development for the future of green buildings. Natural systems can provide heating and cooling, wastewater processing, stormwater uptake, food production, and a range of other services for the built environment. New energy strategies, such as ground-coupling, radiant cooling and advanced photovoltaic systems are needed to dramatically lower energy consumption and increase the use of renewable energy systems. Closing materials loops by designing buildings for deconstruction and developing disassemble building products with recyclable materials is a barely addressed issue in the context of today’s green buildings.