Sustaining Your Business With Sustainable Design

There’s no doubt that green building is in the black, even as the overall housing market hemorrhages red ink. The value of green-building construction climbed from $10 billion in 2005 to between $36 billion and $49 billion in 2008, according to a recent McGraw-Hill Construction report.

Builders in the field agree with this assessment, but say both builders and homeowners need more education on what “green” really means.

“It’s becoming important because it’s a becoming a buzz word,” says Bill Nolan, owner of The Nolan Group, an Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based building-industry consulting firm. “Over the last couple years, there’s been an identity given to that concept, and builders are marketing it. I’m not sure everyone understands what it means.”

Dueling standards
New standards are both helping and hurting the cause, says Nolan, who chaired the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) task force that oversaw construction of the association’s 2009 New American Home. He notes that the NAHB’s Green Guidelines, the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) system and the U.S. Energy Dept.’s ENERGY STAR Homes program all aim toward the same sustainability goals, but vary in their approaches.

Bonnie Pickartz, who, with her husband David, owns Franklin, N.C.-based Goshen Timber Frames, agrees that the differing certifications can lead to builder—and homeowner—confusion. But she sees promise in the fact that the NAHB’s Green Guidelines recently earned accreditation from the American National Standards Institute.

“That gives builders a chance to say, ‘I can go to one place,’” she says. “If there’s one system out there and we can promote that, I think that will help green building.”

The Downturn’s Silver Lining
Paradoxically, the current slowdown also may help sustainable design grab a foothold in the industry, by giving builders and remodelers some time to research and set new practices into place. Using this downtime effectively could be important to future success, since state and local building officials are beginning to include green-building techniques and technologies in their codes.

“I would guess within the next two to three years, most of the green issues will be required in Florida,” says Nolan.

Additionally, Nolan sees mortgage lenders taking a greater interest in homes incorporating energy-efficient designs, because of the role such features play in reducing homeowners’ expenses.

“In the final analysis, a green house costs less to operate,” he says. “The cost of living in that house becomes less.”

Learning Options
While builders might have more time during this slowdown to educate themselves on green-building technology, they might not have the travel budget to afford national conferences or other learning options. Nolan says national and state building associations are starting to send speakers out to local-area chapters to help address this need.

Pickartz says she’s turned to online resources to gain much of her knowledge.

“I’ve downloaded the NAHB Green Guidelines and the LEED guidelines, and I subscribe to all the industry newsletters,” she says, noting pathnet.org and doe.gov as two other useful online options. But, she adds, face-to-face interactions still are important. “I think you have to go out there and listen to what other builders have to say.”

However you go about it, though, brushing up on sustainability now may be critical if you want to maintain your own business once the downturn begins to reverse itself.

“Eighteen months ago, if you just got four walls and a roof up, you could sell it,” Nolan says. “As we start to come out of this trough, the buyers will be looking for all these bells and whistles.”