ZED compared the merits and drawbacks of several green home building standards for a regional homebuilder’s association (HBA).  The decision the HBA faced was whether it should roll out its own green building standard it had drafted or become a partner with the NAHB National Green Building standard.  ZED evaluated the HBA’s green building draft standard against LEED for Homes and NAHB Green Building Standard and compared the technical requirements and relative ease of implementation of each standard.  Further, ZED assessed the administrative requirements the HBA would need to fulfill in either partnering with NAHB or running its own building standard.

After conferring with the client to understand its goals in offering a green building program, ZED recommended that the client partner with NAHB to offer the National Green Building standard. 

ZED’s Emile Chin-Dickey sat on the residential working group (RWG) of the Massachusetts Zero Net-Energy Buildings Task Force.  The task force was Governor Deval Patrick’s initiative to identify a path towards broadly marketable zero net energy buildings (ZNEB) by 2020 and universal adoption of ZNEBs by 2030. The RWG, composed of an outspoken mix of 15 industry leaders from the builder, energy rater, design, engineering, and policymaking communities, was tasked with making actionable, housing-specific recommendations in support of the governor’s goal over the course of four months.

ZED championed the measurement of new and existing buildings’ energy performance believing that homeowners did not understand how different buildings used energy and, given a common yardstick, would factor such energy use into purchasing patterns.  This would effect a market shift towards better performing buildings—furthering the governor’s goal.   Final Report  (6MB PDF)

89 Oxbow is an Energy Star rated 16-unit affordable housing development in Wayland, MA. The developer asked ZED to analyze the building design and performance, recommend cost-effective energy efficiency improvements, lead a green charrette, and provide financial arguments to support a green affordable housing grant application. Within this scope, ZED performed a cost-benefit analysis that factored energy performance benefits and cost data from a local contractor. With this analysis, ZED illustrated the total cost of ownership of improvements for each unit. With the grant spending strategy that ZED produced, the developer was awarded a $250k grant from the Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).

A nationally respected production builder and developer asked ZED to lead a seminar to educate its sales and marketing team about green building topics.  Since ZED had also worked on several of the client’s projects, ZED was able to provide direct insight into the housing products the audience was familiar with.  Topics included, among others, defining a green building, LEED and other green building standards, carbon footprints, and understanding the importance of energy efficiency.