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.

Another way that home builders implement green building practices is by conserving materials and resources. Respondents were asked which material and resource conservation practices they used on over half of their projects. Minimizing construction waste during design and construction was the most popular response at 78%, followed closely by prefabricated components (such as panels and trusses) at 64%. The third highest, diverting construction waste from landfills, was used significantly less at 35%.

The Role of Technology in Green Building

Some of the home builders and remodelers surveyed in the SmartMarket Brief used renewable energy sources in at least half of their building projects, although not at a very high rate. Among the eight types of renewable energy solutions, geothermal systems were used the most at 11%. The next was onsite solar energy at 10%. This differs substantially by region, with 31% of respondents from the West deploying solar energy systems, 21% from the Northeast, but only 3% from the Midwest or South.

A larger number of builders are incorporating electrification and electric vehicle chargers into homes. Over half of builders size the electrical panel to accommodate an EV charger in at least half of their projects, and 40% provide a charging outlet for a single 30A charger, according to the survey. A quarter of respondents build more than half of their homes to be all-electric, and nearly a fifth design all their homes to eventually only use electricity.

Custom home builder and remodeler Heather Laminack works in Texas where solar is the most common way her customers go green because of the amount of sunlight exposure. No matter what her customers decide, though, she and her team prep every roof for solar panels.

“All of our custom homes are pre-wired for solar,” said Laminack. “If our clients are on the fence, on whether or not they can afford solar panels [at the time of construction] … we’ll at least pre-wire them so down the road, it’s an easier lift if they want to add solar panels to [their home]. Providing those avenues for them to become more energy independent in the future is a big part of our approach.”

Other common energy efficient strategies used by home builders include blower door testing for air leakage, an above-code energy program (such as the National Green Building Standard), and installing all ducts in conditioned space.

Advances in Energy Efficient Building Materials

Most components of an existing home, particularly an older home built 20 years ago or more, have green alternatives for home owners who want to invest in energy efficiency. Appliances, such as dishwashers and refrigerators; lighting fixtures and bulbs; insulation and air sealing; space heaters and water heaters; air conditioning units; and windows and doors are all available in more energy efficient options.

There are also more non-traditional energy efficient materials that can be beneficial in specific climates, such as cool roofing. Cool roofing uses highly reflective materials so the roof of the home absorbs less heat from the sun, keeping the home cooler during hot months, and decreasing the demands on air conditioning and energy.

Another alternative is advanced house framing, which reduces the amount of lumber used and waste generated during the construction of a wood-framed home. This energy efficient technique optimizes the amount of lumber to offer more room for insulation materials without jeopardizing the structural integrity of the home.

The Financial Benefits of Investing in Green Home Building

Green building cannot only improve the performance of a home, but the costs associated with operating it. According to the 2021 edition of What Home Buyers Really Want, the average buyer is willing to pay as much as $9,292 more upfront for a home to save $1,000 annually on utility costs. Buyers are generally willing to spend more on green certifications as well, including more than $2,000 upfront for a home certified to an above-code standard for health and wellness.

There are also federal tax credits available for eligible contractors who build or substantially reconstruct qualified new energy efficient homes. These projects can earn a tax credit of up to $5,000 per home.

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