A recent technology that is paying environmental dividends and growing fast.
An excerpt and links to national series of articles.
Monday -- August 21, 2006
Raising 'green' roofs
Residential developers have been laggards in the "green" building movement, but now they're starting to embrace the idea as consumers pay closer attention to rising energy bills. Across the country, homebuilders are starting to make "green" part of their marketing hook.
More consumers are starting to ask for "green" features in their homes, the Baltimore Business Journal says, because of both soaring energy costs and a "pop-culture embrace" of issues such as global warming. One local builder is teaming with the National Association of Home Builders on a "PowerHouse" that will showcase $50,000 worth of energy-efficient construction techniques, the paper reports.
A message on the Greater Houston Builders Association's Web site urges "Buy a home that's good for you and the environment. Buy green," the Houston Business Journal writes. Since the trade group began its push to get local builders to embrace energy-efficient building techniques in December, more than 2,500 houses have been enrolled in the program.
In South Boston, an 11-story condo project might become the first residential building in the city to gain a top rating from a national green building group and a cluster of townhomes in a Boston suburb will be the first condo project in New England to offer a solar-powered electric system as a standard feature, the Boston Business Journal writes.
Tract developers are taking note, too. One company planning a 25,000-home community in Florida built its first 6,000 homes to traditional standards, but everything going forward will be green, reports the Tampa Bay Business Journal. One industry expert told the paper she expects within the next year, more than half the nation's homebuilders will have turned green.
