250,000 Homes Certified to the NGBS

The National Green Building Standard (NGBS) Certification Program reached a key milestone this week with the certification of its 250,000th home — the Broadstone Junction multifamily community in historic Norcross, Ga. That’s a quarter of a million certified homes.

The home is in a 209-unit adaptive reuse community of loft and flat-style apartments on 12 acres that were previously a suburban office park. Two new buildings contain 200 flat-style apartments, while the former offices of national packaging company WestRock were redone as 90 lofts. A large community park, open to the public, serves as a focal point at the center of the property. Energy use in the renovated buildings has been reduced by almost 30 percent; water use has been reduced by 47 percent.

The project was developed by Alliance Residential, designed by Brock Hudgins Architects and verified by Joe Baumann, an NGBS Green Master Verifier from SK Collective.

Since the NGBS Green Certification Program began in 2009, it has provided builders with a national standard to define and measure sustainable multifamily and single-family homes, developments and remodeling projects. It also offers consumers a level of confidence that they are purchasing an independently verified green property.

The recently released ICC 700 – 2020 National Green Building Standard® offers builders and developers additional compliance paths for certification, including full certification of mixed-use buildings (with at least 50 percent residential space) and an entry-level certified path for single-family builders.

Home Innovation Research Labs, the administrator of the NGBS program, has developed several new tools and resources to aid building professionals with the certification process and to showcase their high-performance builds:

• Just getting started with green certification? The NGBS Bronze cookbooks provide roadmaps to see which practices are most commonly incorporated into NGBS Green Certified homes.
• Want to see how NGBS energy performance compares to other codes and certifications? Check out these Multifamily Energy Performance Comparison infographics.
• Deciding which green rating system is the best for you? Compare the NGBS to other programs including LEED, HERS Index and ENERGY STAR for Homes.
• Are you going above and beyond in certain areas of high-performance building? Earn NGBS Green+ Badges for your project using practices already in the program. Badges are available for: Net Zero Energy, Resilience, Smart Home, Universal Design, Wellness and Zero Water.

Visit nahb.org/ngbs for more information on how to certify a project to the NGBS, purchase a hard copy or download a free pdf of the reference standard.

For more details about NAHB's sustainable and green building programs, contact Sustainability and Green Building Program Manager Cal Trepagnier. To stay current on the high-performance residential building sector, follow NAHB's Sustainability and Green Building team on Twitter.