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Dual Certification: National Green Building Standard™ with the Builders Challenge

 

The National Green Building Program is incorporating an energy efficiency label along with green building through a dual certification process.

National Green Building Certification offers certification to the ICC 700-2008 National Green Building Standard™, an ANSI-approved consensus standard that provides criteria for rating the environmental performance of residential buildings including detached and attached single-family, multi-unit and renovation projects.

The NAHB Research Center, a nationally-accredited third-party certification agency, is the sole certifier for National Green Building Certification and is a Builders Challenge Partner. Based on this existing partnership, new single-family homes that are certified Silver, Gold, or Emerald to the Standard can be concurrently certified to the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) Builders Challenge.

For a house to qualify for dual certification to the Standard and Builders Challenge, builders should use the free online Green Scoring Tool. Certification to the Builders Challenge requires specific Standard practices to be selected. The Green Scoring Tool simplifies the rating process by identifying the required Standard practices required for the Builders Challenge, and by providing a Builders Challenge Designer’s Report as well as a real-time status notification when all of the required criteria have been selected and met.

Illustration showing the EnergySmart Home Scale, which is a horizontal bar with a rating of 150 on the left to represent poor energy performance, and 0 on the right to represent best energy performance. The color fades from red on the left to orange to yellow to green on the right. Several typical ratings are shown along the scale, with a typical existing home at 130 in the red, a typical new home at 100 in orange, a Builders Challenge home at 70 or lower in yellow, and a net zero energy home at 0 in green. Spaces are included for users to record the estimated annual energy cost and the estimated annual energy use. An example labeled 'Your Home' is shown to have a rating of 65. The DOE and Building America logos are displayed on the bottom of the graphic.

Learn more about the Builders Challenge dual certification in this technical bulletin from the U.S. Department of Energy.
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