National Green Building Standard submitted to ANSI for certification

The National Green Building Standard (NGBS) (http://www.nahbrc.org/technical/standards/greenbuilding.aspx) a joint effort of the National Multi-Housing Council, National Association of Home Builders, and the International Code Council, recently submitted the second draft of the NGBS to ANSI for acceptance as a standard for green home building construction practices.

Based on building codes, the new standards would be compliant with future revisions of IBC and a product of public comment and input.The submitted draft and comments from the first draft can be found on the NAHB website.

Most helpfully, this proposed standard incorporates a multi-family perspective that is missing not only from previous efforts but also those of other organizations. From the NMHC’s perspective, “LEED for Homes, like other green building rating systems, was crafted as a voluntary program that established aspirational green building goals. The USGBC has consistently maintained that LEED for Homes is designed to target the top 25 percent of new homes in terms of environmental responsibility and was never intended to be a baseline green building standard. As a result, LEED rating systems include complex and time-consuming certification and documentation requirements and inflexible technical provisions that can prove problematic in mainstream apartment construction.”

With the integration into IBC (which states and localities have the option of accepting), this is a significant game changer. When combined with IBC and heating and cooling codes, the NGBS should make all construction sustainable. This will require a substantial retraining of architects, engineers, and contractors, as well as cooperation from underwriters and MAI. We are actively exploring this at the office and I hope to know more as the comment period proceeds.