Masonry Magazine November 2007 Page. 25
The past 50 years made creating green communities impossible; automobiles were needed to get everywhere. The LEED for Neighborhood Development system serves as a guideway for developing compact, walkable, well-connected communities with a holistic approach to sustainability."
Earlier this year, Bob Jones, VP of the National Association of Home Builders, reported to Congress that since the 1990s, U.S. homebuilders have built and certified as "green" more than 100,000 homes. That number is steadily increasing as more green building materials enter the marketplace, and as more builders now realize that consumers are willing to absorb the initial higher costs to purchase an environmentally friendly home. In fact, a recent survey from Green Builder Media and Imre Communications reports that buyers are willing to pay 11 percent to 25 percent more for a green house.
The survey queried more than 250 residential builders across all homebuilding markets, from affordable to luxury to multi-family and developer categories. Fifty-one percent of respondents said their customers pay additional premiums for green homes. The survey also reports that 96 percent of respondents intend to incorporate more green building materials and processes into their business.
"Builders are buying green products because they feel it's important to both the environment and their businesses. This shift in behavior and purchasing patterns confirms just how significant the green building movement is," says Sara Gutterman, CEO of Green Builder Media. "As demand increases for green products within both the consumer and trade market, manufacturers will respond by accelerating research and development, which benefits both the environment and homebuyers."
However, just 51 percent of builders in the survey report using green products or practices regularly. According to Imre and Green Builder Media, the primary reasons builders provided for not using more green products were price and availability. "This suggests that manufacturers have an opportunity to penetrate the market with new cost-competitive product lines, and also that there is market share to be gained by these manufacturers by providing a wider selection of product choices," they say.
Enter companies, such as Hohmann & Barnard, which has innovated numerous www.masonrymagazine.com anchor, reinforcement and flashing products that enable masonry walls to endure and perform efficiently as intended by the architect and owner. (See the "Green Products for the Masonry Industry" sidebar.) Additionally, most of the company's masonry-related products are manufactured from recycled materials, which can add more LEED points to a masonry structure.
"A good 60 to 75 percent of our product line has something to do with some sort of recycled content or renewable content,
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November 2007
Masonry 23