How Green Building Is Shaping the Future of Construction
As home builders construct new homes, keeping up with green building trends will ensure they can compete in the current housing market.
In February 2024, NAHB and Dodge Data & Analytics released a SmartMarket Brief that revealed a majority of builders are involved with green building. The brief, Building Sustainably: Green & Resilient Single-Family Homes 2024, is compiled from a survey of 250 home builders and remodelers.
Future Trends in Sustainable Building Practices
The 2024 SmartMarket Brief survey asked respondents to select the top three factors that would increase their engagement with green building in the future. Half of respondents listed increased home buyer demand for green homes. The second highest at 48% was availability of government or utility incentives. Third, at 37%, was available, affordable high-quality green products.
Resiliency building — the practice of developing building plans with environmental hazards in mind — is another trend in green building. Common natural hazards that green home builders take into account are earthquakes, extreme temperatures, flooding and fires. Resilience and green building practices that can reduce the impact of such events can also help mitigate the costs to recover from natural disasters.
In an interview with NAHB about post-hurricane repairs, Randy Noel, a custom builder from Louisiana, discussed building resiliency lessons he’s learned from storms such as Hurricanes Ida and Katrina.
There are strategies he implements when building a resilient home to save the buyer money in the long term.
“Garage doors that withstand wind — which typically cost $300 more than standard garage doors — can prevent structural damage to the roof over the garage, which also costs tens of thousands of dollars to repair,” said Noel.
Other home-saving and money-saving measures builders can make include:
- Strapping and gable bracing cost about a dollar per square foot and can save a structure.
- Taping joints costs $1,000 and can save thousands of dollars in potential damage if a home is hit by a natural disaster.
According to the SmartMarket Brief survey, 96% of home builders and remodelers say they actively improve home-building performance using either energy, water and materials resource efficiency, healthier indoor living environments, resiliency, green site/lot development, and providing operation and maintenance manuals for green features.
