The National Green Building Standard (ICC 700 or "the Standard")* is the only residential green building rating system approved by ANSI, the American National Standards Institute, as an American National Standard. The Standard provides practices for the design, construction, and certification of green residential buildings, renovations, and land developments. It also sets requirements and environmental performance levels for green buildings and developments.
Under the Standard, green building practices are assigned point values. A home can attain one of four performance levels — Bronze, Silver, Gold, or Emerald — depending on how many green practices are included in the single-family home or the multifamily building. For a building to attain any certification level, all of the applicable mandatory provisions must be correctly implemented. In addition to the mandatory provisions, the Standard requires the home to include sufficient green practices in each of the six categories of green building practices to meet the category minimums for each green level. As an ANSI-approved green building rating system, the Standard provides builders with a credible definition of green home. Since it provides a flexible, expansive point-based system for certification, it also offers builders a process to build affordable green homes that meets their goals, appropriate for the climate, and meets the needs of the market and homebuyers.
The National Green Building Standard is currently being updated, as required by ANSI. Follow the update process on the NAHB Research Center's website.
* The NAHB Model Green Home Building Guidelines were created in 2006 and served as the starting point for the Consensus Committee that created the ICC 700-2008 National Green Building Standard. The NAHB Research Center began certifying single-family new homes to the Guidelines in January 2008. Once the Standard was approved by ANSI in January 2009, the Research Center offered both rating systems as options for certification, with only the Standard providing options for multifamily, remodeled, and development projects in addition to single-family new construction. The Guidelines were officially phased out as an option for National Green Building Certification in September 2010, and most references to the Guidelines were removed from this website to minimize confusion. However, some builders’ projects were grandfathered into continued certification to the Guidelines through the end of 2011. All certificates issued by the NAHB Research clearly state if a home was certified to the Guidelines or the Standard – homebuyers should check with their builder as to which rating system will be used for certification of their new home. If you are interested in receiving a copy of the NAHB Model Green Home Building Guidelines, please contact us.