New "Green Build" Standard Announced

From the Environmental Leader

The National Association of Home Builders is launching a National Green Building Program at the 2008 NAHB International Builders’ Show in Orlando in February.

The national initiative will link dozens of state and local green building programs with a universal online certification tool, national registry of green homes and green builders. To date, about 100,000 green homes have been built through programs run or supported by local building associations around the country.

“We are bringing green building into the mainstream,” said NAHB President Brian Catalde, a home builder in Southern California. “The NAHB National Green Building Program isn’t a new way to build green. However, it’s a low-cost administrative and certification system that will help keep green affordable – and that’s the key to market acceptance.”

NAHB’s standard would compete with the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED rating tools for residential and commercial buildings, Greenwire reports (via WBCSD).

Following a good LEED

With the recent success of the US Green Build Council's LEED certified building concept that has been taking off landscaping designers are following. Fastcompany covers it here.

With the name the "Sustainable Sites Initiative," it was unveiled last week at the American Society of Landscape Architects Expo as a joint project by that organization, the University of Texas at Austin's Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, and the United States Botanic Garden.

Thinking about it I'm surprised they didn't start the whole thing off. I've complained for years about the lack of strategy we use with city code and landscaping design. (since my family's company had to build useless landscaping and then shortly after got blindsided with storm water regulations for run off).