The National Green Building Standard™ for all residential construction work including single-family homes, apartments and condos, land development and remodeling and renovation was approved today by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI).

The approval signals a new era for the nation’s builders, remodelers and developers and also provides an extra measure of reassurance for home buyers, said Joe Robson, a home builder in Tulsa, Okla., and Chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB).

“The National Green Building Standard is now the first and only green building rating system approved by ANSI, making it the benchmark for green homes,” said Ron Jones, who chaired the consensus committee charged with developing the standard.

“The standard provides home builders 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.

The Research Center provides certification for NAHBGreen projects, which until now have only included single-family homes. “Consumers are looking for authentic, verifiable green building practices, and now they’ll find them with a true industry consensus standard for residential green building,” Luzier said.

The standard defines what green practices can be incorporated into residential development and construction and how home owners can operate and maintain their green homes.

But the National Green Building Standard also provides for flexibility – allowing home builders and home buyers to make green choices based on climate and geography as well as style preferences and budget.

As part of the stringent process required by ANSI, NAHB and the International Code Council gathered a fully inclusive and representative consensus committee composed of a broad spectrum of builders, architects, product manufacturers, regulators and environmental experts. The work of the consensus committee was administered by the NAHB Research Center, an ANSI Accredited Standards Developer.

The consensus committee deliberated the content of the standard for more than a year, held four public hearings and evaluated more than 2,000 public comments in the development of the standard.

Feb. 3 Informational Teleconference for HBAs

NAHB is hosting a teleconference to help HBA staff understand how the ANSI standard will affect home owners, elected officials and the building industry. The conference is free for NAHB-affiliated HBAs.

We encourage you to include all appropriate staff and any interested members. We ask that in order to minimize management costs for the call you gather your participants in a single location and dial in from a speaker telephone.  

TO PARTICIPATE: dial in to the call at 2:00 p.m. EST on Tuesday, Feb. 3, at toll-free 1-800-860-2442, and ask for the "National Green Building Standard Call for HBAs."

If you are unable to listen to the live call, a full replay will be available by calling 1-877-344-7529 then entering 427676 and the # sign when prompted for the account number. The replay will be accessible beginning at 5:00 p.m. EST on Feb. 3 and will be available until 5:00p.m. EST on Feb. 17.

If you have questions:

• About the teleconference: contact Blake Smith 800-368-5242, ext. 8583

   

• About how your HBA can affiliate or technical questions about the standard: contact Kevin Morrow at ext. 8375

   

• From your builder members about how the standard works, contact Chad Riedy at ext. 8225

   

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