Green Home: The Green Standard

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The Green Standard

It’s been more than a year since Minnesota GreenStar was first offered to the public.

The building and remodeling certification program is developing a following.

When it was first announced in 2007, Minnesota GreenStar was something of a groundbreaking imitative. Created through a partnership between the Minnesota building and remodeling industry, environmental groups, and government agencies, GreenStar sought to address what it meant to build or remodel “green” in Minnesota—a program designed by Minnesotans for Minnesotans.

GreenStar is based on a relatively simple concept: points and a checklist. GreenStar’s founders developed a comprehensive, holistic checklist for building and remodeling, one that encompasses five equally important principles: energy efficiency, resource efficiency, indoor environmental air quality, water conservation, and site and community. The checklist is free for anyone to download from mngreenstar.org.

Upon completion of the project, the home is tested to ensure it performs to the standard it was built. Once verified, the points are totaled and the home earns one of GreenStar’s three certifications—bronze, silver, or gold.

The advantage of building or remodeling a GreenStar-certified home, any participant will tell you, is its verified performance. In an age where everyone is rushing to jump on the green bandwagon, sometimes the boundaries between truly green and greenwashing blur.

“We are a credible source, versus a questionable source, of green,” says Mike Williams, executive director of Minnesota GreenStar. “Through certification, there’s accountability and proof that your project is being completed in proper fashion.”

Chuck Carver: Photographer/ Lake Country Builders

‘IMPORTANT, STRONG, AND USEFUL’

Minnesota GreenStar’s pilot remodeling and new home projects kicked off in late 2007. GreenStar was officially opened to the public in March 2008. A year later, GreenStar had certified 14 projects—eight remodels and six new homes. Another 100 projects have been registered.

“We’re at just about every neighborhood and home show this spring and really getting response from the homeowners,” Williams says.

In 2009, GreenStar is expanding its education efforts beyond the Twin Cities to include other regions of the state and is focusing on expanding its education catalog to include courses for real estate agents, architects, and design professionals. In addition, several metro-area cities are developing incentive programs to encourage GreenStar building and remodeling projects.

“GreenStar has been well-received by the building and remodeling community,” says Michael Anschel, principal of Otogawa-Anschel Design Build and a longtime advocate of green remodeling. “The inclusion of Minnesota GreenStar in various cities’ planning…continues to say that this program is not only legitimate, it is important, strong, and useful.”

GREENSTAR GOLD

Most of the GreenStar homes built so far have earned bronze or silver certifications. Only two have earned gold, the highest certification level. Lake Country Builders was the first builder to earn a gold certification and, at the same time, became the first company to have its second GreenStar project certified.

Chuck Carver: Photographer/ Lake Country Builders

The company’s first GreenStar project, a remodel, was initiated by a homeowner interested in remodeling green. The Lake Country staff was just beginning to educate themselves about green, so the company signed on with the GreenStar pilot program and earned a bronze certification.

Sue Jacobson, vice president of Lake Country, says she believes the GreenStar checklist is an asset to any builder or remodeler trying to incorporate green into a project.

“What I like about it is the fact that GreenStar is very credible,” she says. “They do make you do the work, and I value that.”

Lake Country soon was working on another GreenStar project, this time a new home.

“We decided we wanted to build a home that was as green as it could be—that was not cost prohibitive and that was practical,” Jacobson says. When Lake Country’s staff started adding their checklist points, they realized the home was “way above” the sliver level, so they set their sights on gold. The gold certified home will be open for free tours during the Minneapolis & St. Paul Home Tour April 25-26.

“We’ve added a lot of GreenStar aspects to our specifications,” Jacobson adds. “We have incorporated green into all of the projects we are doing, to a certain extent.”

GREEN AND LUXURIOUS

Picture the typical executive home, and “green” is probably not an adjective that comes to mind. But green homes come in all shapes and sizes, and the home that Gary Aulik is building now is proof that green and luxury can live as complements. The home is aiming for bronze GreenStar certification and will appear on the 2009 Luxury Home Tour.

Aulik, the president of Aulik & Associates and Aulik Design Group, and the vice president of the Builders Association of the Twin Cities, was an active participant in the formation of Minnesota GreenStar. He has long been a believer in the green strategy of saving old buildings through restoration and remodeling.

“Philosophically, I believe that builders, both residential and commercial, must change the way we have been building buildings to promote sustainability,” he says.

The Luxury Home Tour home is being built for a client interested in energy and water conservation and sustainable construction. The home offers solutions in all of these areas with a huge list of green features.

“Everybody that’s been working on it acknowledges that there’s some additional work in qualifying for GreenStar,” Aulik says. “But everything GreenStar is asking for is appropriate measures aimed at sustainability.”

Charlie Peterson, a LEED-certified architect on Aulik’s staff, says that the GreenStar checklist was actually quite attainable once he started working on it.

“We found we’ve been doing things the right way in the way we’ve approached and thought about our products,” Peterson says. “We didn’t have to stretch too far to get into the certification level for our projects.”

A GREEN FUTURE?

Williams predicts an explosion of interest in green homes, particularly green remodeling, in the coming years. GreenStar might already be expanding faster, were it not for a recession that has hit builders and remodelers particularly hard. But among these difficulties, Williams sees opportunities.

“Those companies that focus on green have a leg up on their competition, and the forward-thinking builders and remodelers are catching on to that,” he says.

Williams says he believes GreenStar is on the cutting edge of the national green building scene.

“We are really a holistic green building program created by Minnesotans for Minnesotans,” Williams says. “I think our process is quite stellar. It’s accessible, easy to understand for a builder and a homeowner, and it gives options.”

Anschel sees GreenStar leading the way into the future of the state’s building industry: “I think that Minnesota GreenStar has a very real chance of becoming our state standard for all state residential construction.”

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