KB Home celebrated Earth Day on Monday with the release of its 12th annual Sustainability Report. In nearly two decades, KB Home has built more than 128,000 ENERGY STAR® certified homes, 15,000 Water Smart and WaterSense® labeled homes and 7,750 solar-powered homes.
KB Home’s sustainably designed homes are estimated to have cumulatively reduced utility bills by $730 million for homeowners and reduced CO2 emissions by 4.5 billion pounds (equivalent to removing 420,000 cars from the road), and annually conserved an estimated 1.4 billion gallons of water (enough to serve the water needs of nearly 17 million Americans for a single day), and generated an estimated 45 million kilowatt hours of renewable solar energy.
In response to fundamental societal shifts that impact how people live, KB Home is adopting new technologies and innovating new processes to set the course of home building for tomorrow. Earlier this year, KB Home unveiled KB ProjeKt®: Where Tomorrow Lives™, an innovation laboratory that tested far-reaching future concepts and provided an integrated, immersive experience of next-generation home building sustainability.
“Our lives are changing at the speed of the digital age and through our innovation initiatives our homes are changing as well,” said Jeff Mezger, KB Home chairman, president and chief executive officer. “Our goal is to build homes for a lifetime, so we see sustainability as balancing as much as possible the aspirations of today’s home buyers with the longer-term needs of tomorrow. That mindset underlies our holistic, integrated and ever-evolving sustainability platform.”
In 2018 alone, KB Home built:
• 11,176 ENERGY STAR® certified homes
• 1,266 Water Smart and WaterSense® labeled homes
• 1,617 solar-powered homes
In 2018, KB Home achieved its long-term goal of attaining an average national HERS rating of 55. By leveraging economies of scale and its position as an industry leader, KB Home has been able to steadily increase the energy efficiency of its homes and help reduce the total cost of homeownership while maintaining a focus on attainability for its core first-time and first move-up home buyers.
This past year, KB Home reached 15,000-plus WaterSense and Water Smart homes, the largest number of water-efficient new homes constructed by a single builder. In continuing its leadership in building water-efficient new homes using both existing and emerging technologies, KB Home is raising awareness of the energy-water nexus with home buyers and within the home building industry.
Focusing on increasing home buyers’ awareness about existing healthier products and construction techniques, KB Home introduced KB ProjeKt in January. KB Home is now looking to expand its offerings of optional and standard products that contribute to the well-being of a home’s residents, in addition to saving money and energy use.
KB Home strengthened its smart systems offerings in 2018 with a first-in-the-industry partnership with Google®. KB Home has been an industry leader in demonstrating and implementing home technologies that can enhance homeowners’ quality of life. The KB Smart Home System features Google Assistant™, leveraging technology to help make daily living easier, more efficient and more enjoyable by integrating all devices in the home under one intuitive interface.
“Sustainability is not just the right thing to do, it’s also right for our business,” said Dan Bridleman, KB Home senior vice president of sustainability, technology and strategic sourcing. “An energy-efficient KB home today can reduce energy bills by 45% compared to a standard new home built just over a decade ago. That can make homeownership more affordable and distinguishes KB Home from our competition and the resale home market. Just 10% of new homes built today are ENERGY STAR certified, but for more than a decade, KB Home has committed to building 100% ENERGY STAR homes.”
