The NAHB National Green Building Conference in Dallas on May 8-10 will feature new business management courses on how to green your business that will cover everything from green business practices, the legal issues and liabilities surrounding green building, green government programs and more.

Among the offerings:

• "Green Project Management"
  
  Learn how to properly incorporate National Green Building Certification into your project management and scheduling tasks so you can complete jobs on time and see the difference in your bottom line.
  
  Speaker: Cathy Williams, Enviro Custom Homes
  
  
• "Green Building Legal and Liability Issues"
  
  This course will examine potential green building legal and liability issues such as: unmet customer expectations regarding "green" benefits; contract disputes over terminology; additional costs; unexpected delays; problems with obtaining green building certification; allocation of maintenance responsibilities; warranty coverage issues; and compliance with local green building mandates.
  
  Speakers: David Crump and David Jaffe, NAHB; Patrick Perrone, Esq., K & L Gates; Shari Shapiro, Obermayer Rebmann Maxwell & Hippel LLP
  
  

• “Valuing Green Homes”
  
  While builders are putting up green homes at a record pace, one of the key concerns they and consumers have is that the current real estate and appraisal system does not always consider all of the costs, value added and savings embedded in construction of environmentally sensitive and energy-efficient homes. Learn about the efforts of appraisers, Realtors® and bankers to fill in this gap. 

  Speakers:  Beth Johnson, Advocates Realty, and representatives from national green real estate programs
  
  

• “Prepackaged Green Solutions and Systems for Community Living”
  
  Developers are quickly realizing the many benefits associated with prefabricated architecture. Shorter timeframes, predictable costs and lowered risks and liability are only a few of the benefits associated with off-site modular systems-built technology. Learn how to create healthy, beautiful and cost-effective communities through the use of pre-packaged green solutions that include smart, sustainable design and site strategies, energy-efficient systems and eco-friendly materials.
  
  Speaker: Michelle Kaufmann, Michelle Kaufmann Designs

Courses, Speakers, Tours and More

The conference offers more than 30 educational sessions in green business management, building science, design and sales and marketing.

Author Joel Makower, the co-founder and executive editor of Greener World Media as well as a senior strategist at GreenOrder, a sustainability consultancy, will be the keynote speaker.

The conference will also feature a tour of green homes in the Dallas area, a dinner honoring the winners of the NAHB National Green Building Awards and an exhibit hall featuring the latest green products and materials.

In addition, the 2009 class of Certified Green Professionals (CGP) will be honored at a pre-conference reception on Thursday, May 7. To date, more than 2,000 builders, remodelers and other home building industry professionals have earned the CGP designation.

To Register

To register for the conference, visit www.nahb.org/GreenBuildingConference.

Advance registration ends Friday, April 10. [return to top]