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Profitable Residential Green Building: Can It Save the Real Estate Market?
Triple Pundit: People, Planet, Profit — ... from competitors." Industry giant KB Homes announced that all of their homes in 2009 will be built to Energy Star standards. "I'm not saying we're green, because we're not. But we're doing the best we can to become greener," Chief Executive Jeff Mezger said in an interview. Leadership from KB Homes raises the bar for the entire building industry. Proliferation of Standards and Regulations Residential guidelines such as the USGBC’s LEED for Home, NAHB’s Model Green Building Guidelines, and the Federal Government’s ...

David Gottfried: Walkable Neighborhoods Are a Greener Choice (Video)
Planet Green Articles Feed — ... , the U.S. Green Building Council's annual conference. Planet Green is a Silver sponsor of this year's event, which will be held in Boston November 19-21. This is our beautiful neighborhood, called Rockridge, in Oakland, Calif. It's a half-mile down from Berkeley and UC Berkeley. One of the green elements that attracted us here in Rockridge is that it's flat, and incredibly walkable, and one-half a block away are all the support services that you need. LEED for Homes gives you extra points if within a certain distance from your home you have a grocery store, and a bank, dry ...

Reader Report: The New American Heartland: Sustainability in Southwestern Desert Communities
Worldchanging: Bright Green — ... provides a systematic evaluation of energy use and costs for a home, and is used by the mortgage industry to offer financial incentives in energy efficiency mortgages. The HERS Index – as a potential centerpiece for new building codes – is highly appropriate for use by small communities lacking the staff to administer the far more complicated LEED for Homes programs. Small communities need to know that high-performance construction does not mean higher development costs. Immediate and longer-term financial advantages of rebates, tax credits, reduced loan fees, and energy ...

Rock Row Breaks Ground For LEED Certified Housing
INHABITAT — Los Angeles recently saw the groundbreaking of Rock Row, the city’s first Small Lot Subdivision to be certified under the USGBC’s new LEED for Homes program. Developed by Heydey Partnership, the complex is aiming to prove that modern sustainably built homes can be affordable as well. As a result, homes in Rock Row, located in an historic neighborhood in L.A., will range from $475,000 to $550,000. (more…) ...

Suppliers Partner on Model Home that Meets LEED-H Certification
Environmental Leader — ... have signed up as building partners to help Green Life Smart Life’s “green” building home project meet LEED-H certification. The Narragansett, Rhode Island-based “green” home is aimed at helping homeowners understand the requirements of LEED-H certification . ...

Reasons to hire a green renovation expert
Environment — Reasons to hire a green renovation expert By Alexandra Marks | 10.30.09 I ended my last post with the conclusion that hiring a “green expert” would be too expensive and so I would not hire one, but would do the research about various green building techniques myself (which I will then share with you). In that way, I concluded, Martin and I could make informed decisions about which technologies to use based on our limited budget and save the money we’d use on an expert. Even as I was writing that last sentence, I knew that I had not done due diligence. I’ve been blessed in my life to know some remarkable people. One is Rick Schwolsky, the ...