The Value of Green Building Programs to Consumers

There is a fair amount of confusion in the marketplace regarding green building programs. There are dozens of them around the country, from the well known (like LEED) to the lesser known (Green Globes) to the local and regional. I have posted a bunch of them on Inhabit's web site. One criticism about these programs is the fact that there are so many of them can be confusing to the home buyer. While this criticism is valid, I do think that there is value to consumers in "packaging" green building the way these programs do.

Lets compare buying a house to the process of buying a car. There are lots of technologies in a car today: ABS brakes, Electronic Stability Control, double overhead cams, variable valve timing, electronic ignition, blah blah blah. What are these things? They are features. They are not benefits. The benefits from these technologies are really what most people care about, and these benefits are what drive the decision to buy one car over another: the car is safer, gets better mileage, handles better, is more powerful, etc.

So it goes with building houses. There is an almost limitless list of features that can go into a green house (or any house), but most people do not care whether a house has an ERV in it or uses SIPs or ICFs or Icynene insulation. What they do -- and should -- care about is the benefit that these things provide to them.

In this way, green building certification programs distill all of the myriad building science and arcane technological details into a package of benefits: it's healthier, it's more energy efficient, it's more sustainable and it's more durable.

Regardless of which green building organization a house is certified by, in all cases a consumer can feel confident that he or she will be buying a house that is greener than the "typical" house being built today, and often much more so. The certification is the assurance from that organization that a particular house has met its minimum standards, so the home buyer does not have to sort through all of the bewildering technologies present in a house. The builder is usually free to choose how to meet the minimum criteria using whatever method or technology is appropriate, but the bottom line is that the criteria is met, one way or another, and the benefits afforded by these technologies are there for the homeowner to enjoy.