Green building isn't just for the tree-hugging environmentalists anymore. It's a message that the Home Builders Association of Lexington (HBAL) is hoping to communicate to both its membership and the community through a new statewide initiative aimed at helping mainstream homebuilders get ahead of the curve with green building strategies and techniques.
This month, HBAL, working with its counterparts in Louisville and on the statewide level, will officially roll-out Green Build Kentucky, a statewide, comprehensive, voluntary green building program that sets the bar for builders looking to incorporate efficient and environmentally conscious methods in home design and construction.
Motivating factors for the growing interest in green building are both financially and environmentally focused, according to Todd Johnson, executive vice president of HBAL. "Everybody is aware of the fact that energy costs are rising," Johnson said. "We know that the cost of electricity is going up all across the country, and we're not going to be exempt from that here in Kentucky."
And no matter what side of the fence you stand on in terms of the global warming debate, it is becoming a growing concern for a large segment of the population, Johnson added. But the real driving factor in green building today, and behind the push by the state's homebuilding associations to bring more interested local builders up to speed, has been consumer demand.
"Before we dove into this, we looked at states like Texas and Georgia, where we looked at how the industry had grown in terms of their Energy Star programs, and it was from consumer demand," Johnson said. "Everywhere you turn, everything is green now - or they are trying to make it sound green."
The Green Build Kentucky program is based on the National Association of Home Builders' Model Green Building Guidelines, which establish guiding principles in six areas of green home building: lot preparation and design; resource efficiency; energy efficiency; water efficiency and conservation; occupancy comfort and indoor environment quality; and operation, maintenance and education. The NAHB green building program establishes Bronze, Silver and Gold levels of green building certification, based on a point system that establishes specific thresholds of achievement for each of the six guiding principle areas.
Like the Model Green Building program, Green Build Kentucky emphasizes the incorporation of green building practices into every aspect of the home building process, from the orientation of the home to capitalize on passive solar heating to the reduction of job-site waste throughout the building process. Beyond the guidelines established by the NAHB, the Kentucky program requires that a home's energy efficiency be certified according to national Energy Star ratings and that the homeowner receive an explanatory booklet on the green products specific to their home as part of the program's homeowner education requirement.
While HBAL has been working on Kentucky's green building program for more than a year, it waited to finalize the guidelines until after the NAHB's unveiling of its national initiative, which took place in February at the International Builders Show in Orlando, Fla., Johnson said. Kentucky will be only the sixth state to implement a comprehensive, statewide green building program, Johnson said.
"We're kind of at the forefront on this as a state," he added.
The official kick-off for the statewide program is scheduled for Earth Week, with Gov. Steve Beshear announcing the launch of the program from Lexington on April 21.
The first homes built to the new Green Build Kentucky standards are just coming out of the ground, Johnson said. There are currently about 100 homes in the Lexington area that are completing the final stages of the Energy Star certification process, Johnson said, with roughly 150 more currently getting underway. In addition, more than a dozen local builders have signed on as Energy Star partners, Johnson said.
Training is an essential component of the Green Build Kentucky initiative, Johnson said.
HBAL has organized training sessions for local builders and home marketers with Sam Rashkin, who helped to develop the EPA's Energy Star requirements. Rashkin has covered topics ranging from marketing techniques for green homes to an overview of the Energy Star building process. HBAL has also been working closely with Dr. Robert Fehr at the UK College of Agriculture, who has been developing a curriculum on building science and techniques that incorporates many green building principles.
On May 1, HBAL will be hosting a Green Build and Energy Star orientation for local builders and their key subcontractors, as well as interested representatives from northern Kentucky and Louisville. A more in-depth training program developed by UK's Fehr on the Green Build Kentucky guidelines will be held on May 27. In addition, Fehr and HBAL, in conjunction with the NAHB, have developed a four-hour training program for accrediting the third party verifiers who will play an essential role in the Green Build certification process.
"We've been doing a whole lot and have more education planned for our builders as we get these things rolling," Johnson said.
In the next month, HBAL will also be launching a television campaign promoting its Energy Star builders, paid for in part through a matching grant secured from the EPA.
Despite the flurry of activity associated with the Green Build Kentucky roll-out this month, HBAL views the statewide green building program as a long-term commitment to promote a system that, Johnson thinks, could become more the rule for home building than the exception over the next two decades.
"I think that consumer demand is only going to grow. I think everybody is convinced at this point that this is not the lines at the gas station of the '70s, and this is probably going to become the norm for building," Johnson said.
"We think it's here to stay," he added. "We've invested a lot of time and money in it, and I think it's here for the long haul."