One of the first steps in committing to healthy building standards is becoming a partner in the EPA’s voluntary Indoor airPLUS certification program, launched in 2009 to provide construction specifications that protect indoor air quality. Bob Axelrad, EPA senior policy adviser for indoor environments, describes the program as recognition for builders who go “above and beyond” widely accepted building standards to create healthier indoor environments.
Despite a slow start—the program launched in 2009 just as the Great Recession was beginning and attracted only 300 builder partners for the first five years—interest has boomed, with 800 new builders joining since 2014. Members include builders big and small, from custom home builder Fieldcrest Development Corp. in Greenbush, N.Y., to Tempe, Ariz.–based Beazer Homes, one of the nation’s largest home builders.
Participants see indoor air quality and health as “the next important value proposition that they have to offer home buyers,” Axelrad says, a value that they can use to sell their homes. The Shelton Group, a Knoxville, Tenn.–based marketing communications firm focused on energy and the environment, found most home buyers are interested in health and indoor air quality features in their homes. It’s up to builders to sell it to them, says Lee Ann Head, Shelton Group’s vice president of research.
“Overall, health is a strong purchase driver, and there’s increasing concern about indoor air quality,” says Head. “But there’s work to be done to better communicate about the topic.” For example, a recent Dodge Data & Analytics survey found that most consumers don’t understand how their home can impact their health.
Instead of bombarding potential buyers with technical jargon and health information, Head advises sales agents to fold health into conversations about green certifications and energy efficiency. Consumers are familiar with those topics, and they believe energy-efficient homes are healthier because they have fewer drafts and leaks—meaning less mold and better indoor air.
“When you break a new-home purchase decision into its pieces through conjoint analysis, a special indoor air system isn’t one of the strongest drivers,” Head says. “But it, along with green home certifications, strongly impacts price elasticity.”
At Meritage, it took a while for the sales staff to get comfortable talking about a home’s health-based benefits. Herro says sales agents tried to sell healthy homes like they sold energy efficiency and found it wasn’t effective. After all, he says, a family’s long-term health can’t be quantified in dollars and cents like energy-saving features can. Salespeople—and potential buyers—were intimidated by jargon like MERV (maximum efficiency rating value) air filters and low-VOC (volatile organic compound) materials, and they pushed healthy features rather than overall quality-of-life benefits from the house as a whole. The sales team now focuses on “reminding consumers that they can and should have a better functioning home than they’ve had,” Herro says.
