Home Innovation’s NGBS Green program reached a key milestone in October with the certification of our 250,000th home—one of 209 units at Alliance Residential’s Broadstone Junction multifamily community in Norcross, Georgia, an adaptive reuse community of loft and flat-style apartments on 12 acres that previously had been a suburban office park. For the two renovated office buildings in the community that have been converted into residential units, energy use has been reduced by almost 30% and water use has been reduced by nearly 50%.
When NGBS Green started in 2009, Home Innovation’s goal was to provide a national, credible, rigorous, and affordable green building certification for the residential construction industry. Before then, residential building certifications lagged significantly behind other building types. Homes, townhouses, multifamily buildings, housing for students and seniors, and assisted living facilities were all foregoing high-performance green building certifications because they were too difficult and expensive to attain. Home Innovation believed that needed to change, and understood the role we could play in helping the entire industry do better. We took several necessary steps to:
- help improve the valuation process so appraisers and lenders could more effectively calculate the value of green, high-performance features;
- help builders and real estate professionals’ market green homes to their buyers and renters and help provide the tools to discuss green features in a meaningful, understandable way;
- provide those new to green construction the needed simple tools, like the NGBS Green Scoring Tool and the Builder’s Resource Guide, to help get them started, and the on-site expertise of our accredited NGBS Green Verifiers to see them through the process;
- provide architects needed training on the certification process without having to commit to an expensive professional accreditation, and then to connect NGBS Green experienced architects with developers and builders;
- develop an NGBS Green Certified Products program that helps clients find the products and systems that can earn buildings points toward certification; and
- advocate diligently for the NGBS to be recognized for federal, state, and local incentives and mandates—even if NGBS Green is not the best fit for every project, having the flexibility to choose what works best benefits everyone.
The recently released 2020 National Green Building Standard (NGBS) offers builders and developers even more compliance paths than ever for certification, including full certification of mixed-use buildings (with at least 50% residential space) and a streamlined Certified path for single-family builders. The collective impact of these NGBS improvements is to help more buildings be built and certified to an even higher standard. With incentives ranging from preferred financing to enhanced marketing to higher property valuations, NGBS Green can help elevate the performance of the entire industry, regardless of price point or market.
According to NAHB, there were nearly 7 million housing starts over the past decade, so while 250,000 is a milestone, it is not yet market transformation. If you have not explored all the options available under NGBS Green to make your next home greener, healthier, and more efficient, now is the perfect time to do so.
The resources referenced above, a case study of the Broadstone Junction project, and other valuable links are available online at HomeInnovation.com/NGBSGreenResources.
