Score four for the conservationists.
At the time all six custom homes in the 2006 Parade of Homes at Reunion passed Colorado’s stringent Built Green point system, Brad Pitt was giving the “Today” show a walking tour of New Orleans devastation and sponsoring a “green” building contest there, Al Gore reinvigorated his political clout with an earth-wise message, book and film, and Newsweek declared environmentalism hot.
Confronted with such daily reminders that the time has long since passed for individuals and nations to become less energy dependent, Americans are starting to vote with their wallets for more green construction.
“Consumers are absolutely looking for it,” Scott Carter of Brookline Homes says of the Built Green Colorado and Energy Star branding. Both are signposts for consumers that a home includes energy-efficient materials or products.
Brookline’s entry in this year’s Parade of Homes, a $2 million, 8,755-square-foot Tuscan farmhouse-inspired looker dubbed “La Grande Cannoli,” won first place in 11 of 12 categories. Experts surveyed landscaping, architecture, outdoor living space and the like for the annual Parade of Homes awards.
“We’ve been very conscious of Built Green building practices for the past six or seven years now,” Carter says. “It comes down to people looking at their energy bills every month. The way prices have skyrocketed, it makes sense to have a more energy-efficient home.”
Carter says the housing market is beginning to drive his industry’s environmental responsibility. Consumers are becoming increasingly savvy about efficiency issues related to insulation, heating and cooling systems. So homebuilders are forced to respond.
“Builders are telling me that homeowners are saying, ‘Are you Built Green?’ and if they’re not, they turn around and leave,” says Traci D’Alessio, state coordinator for Built Green Colorado, an 11-year-old non-profit that grew out of efforts between builders, politicians and energy industry representatives.
Some of the green features of Brookline’s Parade of Homes offering include double-thick walls filled with top-quality insulation, modulating furnaces that function on an as-needed basis, and “engineered wood” that looks real but gives old-growth forests a break.
D’Alessio got into environmentalism with activism in her heart. She now knows that real change happens with the “green” that people carry in their wallets. But the mainstream marketplace battle is far from won.
For instance, consumers are not likely to research the difference between Built Green, which has branded itself like a bona fide Fortune 500 company – the same ad agency behind milk mustaches is now shucking Built Green Colorado – and Energy Star, a U.S. Department of Energy program that endorses products and practices that help lower greenhouse gas emissions.
Another mainstream challenge to widespread adoption of green construction is the perception that it’s a hippie-dippie tree-hugging movement.
“People need to see what the benefit is to them,” D’Alessio says. “If you look at our criteria, it’s better equipment, it’s proper insulation, it’s durable, longer-lasting materials … there’s a whole host of reasons to use these technologies in addition to saving the environment.”
The good news politically is that Americans are in the mood to mind their money, spend less and try to avoid energy crises.
“From a patriotic perspective, people connect to the idea that energy efficiency is so much better for the country,” says Sam Rashkin, director of the Energy Star Homes program. Energy Star says its homes are 50 percent more efficient than the average Colorado home, and that an Energy Star home will save a Colorado family around $250 a year.
“When people fill up their cars every week, and the price has gone from $20 to $60, it’s a constant reminder that energy prices aren’t going down, they’re only going up,” Rashkin says.
Built Green and Energy Star are banking on homebuilders feeling the marketplace move toward conservation, and potential buyers increasingly realizing that small investments in energy-efficiency pay off later.
“What homeowner wouldn’t be willing to spend $15,000 or $20,000 more for a house that saves them 40, 50 or 60 percent a month on utilities?” Rashkin says. “They’ll have more comfort, more quiet, more durability, better air quality, and in the end, a higher resale value.”
Staff writer Elana Ashanti Jefferson can be reached at 303-820-1957 or ejefferson@denverpost.com.
2006 Parade of Homes
Where: Reunion at East 104th Avenue, just west of Tower Road in Commerce City
When: Saturday through Labor Day. Open daily from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Tickets: $8-$12. On site or discounted at King Soopers.
Web: ParadeOfHomesDenver.com.
