This reflects the growing marketing battle over sustainability going on everywhere. It should have been expected from the industry that brought us the biggest and most luxurious home, the most inexpensive biggest home, the most luxurious small home and the smallest big home and on and on.

The truth of the matter is that this flood of comparisons is growing by the day and ends up making a really good case for not believing anyone. Unfortunately there are many really good genuine sustainable builders who are getting sucked up in this brew of greenwashing and exaggeration.

EnergyStar is an example of a third party agency that has successfully set up programs to police everything from televisions to new homes. A major newspaper reported that the Government Accountability Office (the GAO) set up fake companies that submitted nonexistent products to test approval procedures at the EnergyStar program.  ”The fake companies submitted data indicating that the models consumed 20 percent less energy than even the most efficient ones on the market.” Yet those applications were mostly approved without a challenge or even questions, the report said.

Without a challenge? It gets worse. Many of the approvals were issued by an automated machine with zero human interaction. An official with the Environmental Protection Agency, which administers the program within the Energy Department, insisted that the automated system is only preliminary and that every product is also screened by a human.  However, many of the Energystar workers told different stories. Yup, the government is at it again.

Where does this leave our local consumers? When I was in my teens, I believed that I should trust no one over 18. This worked for me at the time. Conservative caution may be the route to follow with “green building” until there is more accountability in place to protect the public.

Forget the word green all together. Green is not a designation; it is a poor substitute for honestly defining a product by its features (50% lower electric bills, 25% lower water bills etc). You need to spend time doing your homework, talking with educated professionals and proceeding slowly.

 Have you noticed a never-ending parade of claims that this or that product is “green” or “eco-friendly” – including from the housing industry?  Prospective homebuyers who sincerely want to live a sustainable lifestyle should carefully evaluate marketing claims and also consider the home’s location.

“The Green Case for Cities,” in the October 2009 issue of The Atlantic magazine, cautions against slapping on a few solar panels and declaring one’s home to be green.

 ”The problem in the sustainability campaign is that a basic truth has been lost, or at least concealed,” the author wrote. “Rather than trying to change behavior to actually reduce carbon emissions, politicians and entrepreneurs have sold greening to the public as a kind of accessorizing.

“Keep doing what you’re doing, goes the message. Just add a solar panel, a wind turbine, a hybrid engine, whatever. But a solar-heated house in the burbs is still a house in the burbs, and if you have to drive to it, even in a Prius, it’s hardly green.”

One area home builder, self-billed as “Delaware’s Green Builder,” says on the company website: “Green construction is also practical from a marketing perspective. Clearly the usual incentives are not enticing enough buyers. We think green certification will.” (The builder had not yet achieved “green certification” from the National Association of Home Builders, but went on to say, “I know of no other local builder offering certified green construction as standard with every home, although others are headed in that direction.”) 
Taken from DNREC website