The State of Green Building: the 2017 NAHB and Walls Fargo Housing Survey

Last year, NAHB and Wells Fargo Housing Market Index polled 337 single-family home builders on their use of environmentally-friendly products and practices. The answers are revealing. While the majority of surveyed builders do incorporate green products and practices in their construction, many lag behind when it comes to getting homes green-certified.

 

What counts as a green practice or product? For the purposes of this survey, the National Green Building Standard served as a guide for the survey questions, which asked builders if they had used any of 21 selected products and practices.

 

Here are the results:

 

Builders could also write in different products or indicate that they used no green products or practices whatsoever. However, every builder who responded said they used at least one. 13% wrote in other green features they used in their homes.

 

The poll also asked builders whether their homes were certified by any industry standard of green building.

 

Understandably, builders who use a higher number of green products and practices in construction also have a tendency to have their homes certified.

 

However the gap between builders who always or almost always have their homes certified and those who never or almost never have their homes certified is very large, with 48% reporting they never or almost never certify their homes to a green standard.