NGBS-Certified Single-Family Green Homes: Costs and Benefits: Fid-Bau Portal

NGBS-Certified Single-Family Green Homes: Costs and Benefits

Garcia, Angelo Joseph / Mollaoglu, Sinem / Syal, Matt

The predicted green residential market growth in the coming years and the increasing environmental awareness in society have led to an imperative need for home builders to sharpen their understanding of the additional costs and benefits of green residential practices. To aid home builders in this need, this paper presents some key observations based on a thorough examination of the costs and benefits of green single-family homes certified by the National Green Building Standard (NGBS). These observations were verified via interviews with green home builders and included the following: (1) Climate zones and local codes are the base to determine the additional costs and benefits of green buildings. (2) Additional construction costs to achieve green certification are higher in hot and humid climate zones. (3) After satisfying local code requirements following the International Energy Conservation Code (IECC), NGBS bronze or silver certification entails a very low additional construction cost. (4) Payback periods to cover additional construction costs at the NGBS bronze, silver, and gold levels might be as low as 3 years or less. (5) A client base of homebuyers who are willing to buy affordable, smaller, and greener homes exists in today’s market. (6) Prioritizing inclusion of specific green features (e.g., advanced framing techniques) facilitates achieving NGBS bronze, silver, and even gold certification at a potentially very low additional cost. This paper describes the key factors that determine the costs and benefits of green residential projects and presents a framework to facilitate cost–benefit analysis when considering green certification for homes.