On this Earth Day 2022, we are spotlighting sustainable building organization, Earth Advantage. Did you know that every home in Discovery West is constructed to the green building standards set forth by Earth Advantage? Part of our neighborhood’s commitment to sustainability, these standards provide specific guidelines to address the environmental impacts of residential buildings.
To gain third-party certification from Earth Advantage, builders must meet certain benchmarks in the areas of energy, health, land, materials and water. Specific performance testing on metrics such as energy efficiency, air quality and sustainable building materials are examined. What this means for homeowners is savings on energy and water consumption, better indoor air quality and overall peace of mind, as quality inspections are done throughout the building process by accredited building scientists.
We produced a video last year that gives a fantastic overview of Earth Advantage inside the neighborhood. We spoke with Matt Douglas from the organization and talked to him about what Earth Advantage does, an overview of green building practices, overall benefits of certification and what it takes to meet the program requirements.
Earth Advantage does more than just its third-party certification program. Its mission is to “provide knowledge to building professionals and information to consumers through certification, research, education, and software development to accelerate the building industry’s adoption of sustainable practices.” Specifically, the organization promotes the use of green home standards; links the availability of green home data to the residential real estate market; and provides training for key professionals on green building approaches, standards and data.
By clearly defining standards, Earth Advantage hopes to provide a clear pathway for both construction professionals, real estate professionals and homeowners to both follow and better assess green home building attributes. They share more about these standards and how to achieve more sustainable buildings during regular training workshops, publications and various licensing programs. They also believe that publicly available data on energy consumption and green attributes is the best way to determine the value of these approaches, and influence their prevalence and acceptance in the marketplace.
To learn more about Earth Advantage on this Earth Day 2022, visit their website.