Although some builders are partnering with local builder's associations to brand their green building efforts, Beazer Homes has announced their own, called eSmart. The first Top 10 builder to do so, it comes right on the heels of a national branding campaign announced by the NAHB in February at the Int'l Builder's Show. I'd certainly look for other large builders to follow suit. From the press release:
Beazer Homes USA, Inc. (NYSE: BZH), one of the nation’s top 10 homebuilders, today launched eSMART by Beazer Homes™, the first comprehensive program of its size designed to increase energy and water efficiency, and improve indoor air quality, for every home it builds.
The innovative program combines high-performance products from GE, Honeywell, Moen and others with industry-approved green building practices, and is designed to have an immediate impact on the home’s annual operating costs. The new eSMART features will be made available at no additional cost to buyers.
Going forward, every newly-started Beazer home will include products designed to increase energy and water efficiency, including Honeywell FocusPRO™ Programmable Thermostats, GE EnergySmart™ compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs), GE Energy Star® dishwashers and MOEN water-saving bathroom faucets and showerheads. Additionally, each new Beazer home will incorporate products designed to improve indoor air quality, including air filters with a higher minimum efficiency rating value (MERV), and carpets and paints that emit lower volatile organic compounds (VOCs)...
eSMART by Beazer Homes™ will provide homeowners immediate annual energy savings when compared with a similar home built without these features. For example, converting the typical 3-bedroom, 2½-bath Beazer home to EnergySmart™ CFLs will save homeowners approximately $331 in annual energy and replacement costs* (at 9.7 cents/kWh).
According to Callahan, Americans’ expectations about energy efficiency in new home construction are changing. Some 66 percent of consumers polled by Beazer Homes in March 2008 report being more conscious of the environment and the need to conserve natural resources today than they were five years ago. And nearly three-quarters (73 percent) said that builders need to do more to make an affordable "green" home available to the average American. Driving this point home, two-thirds of survey respondents ranked the importance of energy-saving features, such as programmable thermostats and CFLs, on par with higher-end kitchen features when making a new home purchase decision.
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