For this week’s Guest Post Friday here at Musings, we welcome back Mike Collignon. Mike is a co-founder of the Green Builder Coalition. The Green Builder® Coalition is working to improve the sustainable attributes of new and existing buildings through education, information and advocacy.
There are a number of decisions that were made in 2013 that I feel point the residential homebuilding industry in a clear direction towards sustainability. Better still, some of these decisions will reinforce the importance of sustainability to homebuyers and homeowners. I’ll break this down into three categories:
Regulation
As we previously reported, building officials voted in favor of adding an ERI compliance path to the 2015 IECC. This is significant on a number of levels, some of which we didn’t delve into until now. Given the flexibility of an ERI, I believe we’ll see many builders choose this option, when states start adopting the 2015 IECC in 2-4 years. It requires strong performance levels, so the average builder will have to step up in order to comply. Meanwhile, the above-code builders will retain their market advantage by continuing to market their outstanding ERI scores. Also, they will face little to no disruption to their day-to-day business, and could face the very real possibility of expansion.
The use of an ERI as a code compliance path is nothing new. New Mexico has been utilizing it since 2009. Other jurisdictions, including several around New York City, have started to adopt it as well.
Arkansas is looking at a very different approach. The state energy office has proposed a plan that would require a HERS rating and a home label. If this passes, the home label component could set a precedent for other states and finally bring real transparency to the homebuying process.
