ANSI Approves Home Builders Green Standard

Washington, DC, Feb. 2, 2009--The National Association of Homebuilders said last week that its new green building standard for residential properties was approved by the American National Standards Institute, paving the way for its release.

The certification system, called the National Green Building Standard, covers single-family homes and multifamily apartment and condo buildings, areas where the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating system is established but not yet dominant. It will compete directly with LEED for Homes, a similar program that was released last year.

NAHB spent more than a year developing the standard, which is meant to strengthen its existing certification system for homes, NAHBGreen. The current program is administered by the NAHB Research Center, a subsidiary of NAHB that will also oversee the new system.

“The standard provides homebuilders and remodelers with a much more expansive third-party rating system that they can use to achieve green certification under NAHBGreen and the National Green Building Certification Program,” said Mike Luzier, CEO of the NAHB Research Center.

As of last summer, more than 2,600 projects were registered to use the scoring and design tool of NAHBGreen.

About 1,150 projects were certified under LEED for Homes as of December, and another 13,750 projects were registered for certification, according to USGBC.

NAHB is holding a conference call Thursday, Feb. 5, to discuss the new standard. Scheduled to participate are Bill Killmer, group executive vice president for advocacy of NAHB; Mike Luzier, president of NAHB Research Center; Dominic Sims, COO of the International Code Council; and Don Ferrier, a home builder in Fort Worth, TX.