Zero of America's Biggest Home Builders are Going Green
A study out this month by Calvert, a socially responsible investment firm, shows that the homebuilding industry is lagging on green construction.
In fact, among the nation's 13 largest publicly traded homebuilders, none has fully incorporated green building into their business practices.
And exactly zero of them are close.
The reason? From the Calvert press release:
They have not acknowledged that there is a market for green homes or that they have a role in serving or promoting it.
Peculiar.
Recent findings from McGraw-Hill Construction have shown that green building continues to buck the US housing trend.
The industry is seeing annual growth of as much as 30 percent. By 2012, the market is expected to double to 12% to 20% of the total market share, or $40 billion to $70 billion. And, homeowners these days are willing to pay a premium for greener homes of $18,500 on average.
In other words: The state of the market for green homes is strong.
And don't foget this: America's building sector is responsible for some 40 percent of the nation's greenhouse gas emissions.
Calvert warns that the top homebuilders could be left at a competitive disadvantage to those companies who understand the urgency of climate action -- and the green housing trends.
The report, "Greener Pastures for America's Homebuilders? A Survey of Sustainable Practices by the Homebuilding Industry" (free download), isn't all bad news though.
All of the homebuilders have incorporated some energy efficiency programs and products into their constrution, and 12 of the 13 have at least committed to building 100 percent Energy Star homes in some markets.
Irrespective, green building isn't where it should be: at the core of their business strategies.
Too bad.
Remember that Canada-Mexico-US report on green building that came out in March? It found that using greener building design and construction could slash greenhouse gas emissions by a whopping 35 percent in all of North America.
America's top homebuilders could help that along quite a bit, if they chose to.
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Home builders who don't
Home builders who don't approach green features will face a competitive advantage, we know that, what we don't know is why didn't they do that until now? What are they expecting to happen? Perhaps the green demands for housing market are not high enough to enable the home builders to start going green. I think we need a more complex research on this basis, that would give us some answers. In my understanding our local Scottsdale home builder is already going green, it's surprising to learn that national wide builders are still behind.
home builder
well, what happened?
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