| Top 14 Reasons for Home Builders to Consider Building Green |
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bridges vol. 11, September 2006 / Green Buildings Focus by H. Alan Mooney The following is an edited version of an article by H. Alan Mooney, P.E, president of Criterium Engineers. It was reprinted with permission from the September/October 2006 issue of Mid-Atlantic Builder, published by the Home Builders Association of Maryland. All rights reserved. Building green is getting a lot of attention, with everyone asking HOW to build green. If you review the Green Building guidelines of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB), you can see that they are well researched, comprehensive, and somewhat complex to implement. For most builders, getting to the Gold level would require a significant commitment of organizational efforts and resources. So why bother? People are buying your homes. You have been in business a long time. You have a good reputation. What you are doing works for you. Building homes is complex enough already! Why bother to build green at all? To answer that question, here are 14 compelling reasons why building green makes sense for your business, your customers, and your role as a community leader. 1. Building green is no longer a "fringe" concept - it is mainstream. It is commonsense building practices organized to be quantifiable and labeled so you can talk about them. The market for green built homes was $7.4 billion last year. NAHB has forecast that it will grow to $38 billion in 2010. That's a 5-fold increase in five years, and 14 percent of the single family market in 2010. You are already familiar with most methods and materials used for green building. This is not a hi-tech, "push the envelope" way to build, but an organized way to coordinate many established building practices to produce an energy-efficient home. Access to the full article is free, but requires you to register. Registration is simple and quick – all we need is your name and a valid e-mail address. We appreciate your interest in bridges. |
