Where to Start with Sustainable Building

For Drew Smith — a home builder turned green building consultant and founder of Sarasota, Fla.–based green consulting firm Two Trails — the answer for why builders should be aiming higher than just hitting code mandates can be much simpler than an ethical imperative; it can be as simple as the fact that customers want it.

“Home buyers are gravitating to [sustainable] builders,” he says. “We can tell that by the interest.” Two Trails is averaging three new builder clients a month, who have never built green before, and Smith says it’s all market driven. The builders’ customers are asking for green, and “if they don’t do this, they’ll loose that sale.”

Part of that consumer-driven demand is fueled by improved awareness of the value green building can provide. “Customers know that higher SEER ratings impact energy costs,” Smith says. As a result, the industry standard in many markets has been raised, with energy-efficiency features now expected. Smith reports that in some colder climates, for example, triple-glazed windows are becoming more the rule than the exception. Such sea changes are raising the bar for all the builders in those markets, and especially for those trying to differentiate their product from the pack. 

For builders interested in taking a more sustainable approach to their projects, Smith advises that the best place to start is with the building envelope.

While people typically think of things like low-flow fixtures and energy efficient appliances — which certainly have value, particularly in customer recognition — those are features that customers can add in and improve on over time. Priority No. 1, Smith says, should be “the key features … that people can’t really afford to change later or improve on. Start out with the best envelope you can, and then the rest they can do later at a lesser cost.”

 

How to Sell Green

Photo Credit: amybsells.com

Ever since the housing bust hit, conventional wisdom has held that the best—or even the only—way to sell energy-efficient and green features to both residential and commercial clients was by touting their cost-saving features.  Both family and corporate budgets were tight, so it seemed reasonable to focus on energy-savings clients could see.

But according to Jerry Yudelson, a green building consultant at Tucson, Ariz..–based Yudelson Associates, builders’ and architects’ emphasis on lower energy bills is distracting their clients from the green-building benefits that have far more power to seal a deal.

“It’s about a quieter, more comfortable green home. It’s about what kind of a company you are. You’ve got to tell the story.”

And green homes and buildings have quite a story to tell, he says; it’s just a matter of tailoring the message to the market.

In residential homes, for example, Yudelson says the emphasis should be on appealing to women homebuyers. Tailoring the marketing message to them typically means emphasizing that a green home can offer better indoor air quality, and a quieter, more comfortable interior space.

Making the sales experience convenient and non-intrusive is a must for these buyers. Yudelson suggests a series of 2-minute videos that can be blasted out through social media and that will allow customers to become familiar with the benefits green homes offer as well as the technology that goes into them, all from the comfort of their home and on their own schedule.

In commercial building, the green marketing message depends on who the owner is going to be.

“If it’s a corporate building, it’s all about productivity and health and attracting the right kind of employee. Even if they saved 100% of their energy costs, that’s just noise compared to a 5% improvement in productivity.” For these clients, Yudelson suggests pointing to the fact that green building offers a healthier atmosphere, which means fewer sick days; better daylighting also boosts employees’ ability to work well, and green-certified workspaces will help attract an educated staff.

All things considered, when it comes to marketing green, “energy is the least important thing,” Yudelson says, “so I always encourage people not to put all their eggs in that basket.”