Saturday, December 02, 2006
LEED vs. Green Globes, Part Two
As much as LEED dominates the commercial and institutional green building certification arena, the opposite is true for the residential green home certification market, which is currently dominated by utilities in some metro areas and local homebuilder associations (HBAs) in others. There are “Built Green” HBA programs licensed in seven states, as well as a strong following for the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) voluntary certification guidelines. Independent programs, such as Build It Green in California are also well established. By one insider count, there are at least 65 green building certification programs around the country. A product of the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), Green Globes has formed a close association with the NAHB and must be considered a formidable competitor for the USGBC’s LEED for Homes program, a butterfly that has yet to emerge from the protective cocoon of the current pilot program. When LEED entered the market in 2000, there were no other building certification competitors, so it had an open field to make mistakes and mature as the widely accepted certification it is today. The same will not be true for LEED for Homes when it rolls out a version 2.0 sometime in 2007. It will face an uphill battle for industry acceptance, which it may decide not to fight, in favor of going straight to the home buyer with a coalition of environmental and consumer groups (this is just speculation on my part, but is a strategy that may be adopted in some degree by USGBC.) Insider tip: Look for green home certifications to be a major new battleground for the green building movement over the next 24 months.
Posted by Jerry Yudelson on 12/02/2006 at 03:27 PM
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