Practical Eco

Green Eco Communities website

A new website, Green Eco Communities aims to make it easy to find green communities, villages and towns throughout the U.S.

The site lists home developments and communities across the country, so where ever you're shopping for a home you can easily find green options.

Each community listing page also offers an easy-to-read list of the community's green criteria, amenities, green features and contact information.

Features of Green Eco Communities:

• Green communities searchable by state
• Easy to understand description of LEED certification, a nationally accepted set of green building standards
  
• Green news articles such as greenwashing and choosing a green builder
• List of green resources
• Green Eco Voice, a green blog about sustainable communities and green news
• List a community or advertise a product or service for free until December 31, 2008

The Orchard: A New Development of Upscale Green Homes in Chapel Hill

Off of Jones Ferry Rd near the fork with Damascus Rd just outside of Carrboro is a new green built community of 18 homes called The Orchard. These homes are all certified by the Green Building Initiative (GBI) standards to a gold or silver level.

The homes sit on two-acre plots and are about 4600 square feet in size with prices starting at $1 million. For one of two available homes now click here.

Dale Giera, chief executive officer of Hampton Green Homes said, "By including solar thermal standard in each and every home, and by giving homeowners the option for photovoltaic solar, we are setting a new energy standard in green building."

For more information about The Orchard and a complete list of green features, please visit www.liveattheorchard.com.

NAR recognizes value of Green building

The National Association of Realtors^® at its recent Conference & Expo in Orlando Florida held a session titled “Making Green Building Work for You and Your Clients.” It was designed to show how to help buyers and sellers bring green into their homes.

I noticed that one of North Carolina's own, Victoria Schomer from Green Built Environments in Asheville, was a panelist at the session. Sure, Victoria is originally from California, but she's well established in our state now and making a great difference here.

North Carolina may not have quite the degree of green momentum that we see on the West Coast, but we're making great strides. And this is a place that green building can have a major impact on the health and wallets of home owners. Our hot humid summers mean that green building practices can save you a lot of energy on air conditioning. And the humidity can wreak havoc on your health because it breeds mold and mildew so readily. Mold can lead to serious respiratory issues so it's probably the number one enemy of healthy homes in this climate.(See my post on the Key Behaviors to Maintaining a Healthy Home)

It's always great to see national recognition of green building, but it's especially good that the realtors are taking note since they have the face to face interaction with home buyers. And it's particularly important for home buyers to be educated about the benefits to them of better building practices.

The NAR has is also just launched a Green Designation course to help Realtors^® provide green expertise and service. The first Green Designation core course was completed in Orlando just before the conference and over 230 Realtors^® earned the designation. It will be interesting to see how this affects the Eco Broker designation that several brokers in North Carolina have already earned.

Inhabitat: Clean Coal Story

My favorite blog, Inhabitat, recently ran an item about clean coal. I've been thinking about this recently because our President Elect, Obama, has said he supports so called "clean coal" technology. This clever term lures people into believing it really is - clean that is. Far from it, "clean coal" is only slightly better. While there are some noble efforts out there, and reducing emissions even by a fraction of a percent from coal plants can add up to huge reductions, there are many better alternatives that we need to pursue more aggessively.

Read Inhabitat's full story here "IS IT GREEN? Clean Coal"