Gottfried Green

So I drove to Cocoa, FL last week to take the Florida Green Building Coalition's Green Home Designation Course at the Solar Energy Center. It was a long day. I had to stay over to be able to make the 8am start. The class went to 4pm followed by a series of timed tests for each category covered in the course. The instructor was thorough to say the least. You can view his bio at the course link above. Basically the Solar Energy Center facilitates the course for the FGBC. This give the information a strong integrity with the science to back it up. If you pass the course you are able to become a green home certifying agent who submits the required information needed for a home to be designated green under the FGBC standards. The standards are set up to meet and exceed standard building here in FL. That said, it isn't incredibly hard for builders to go green. The beauty of the program for the green building movement is that it offers an in for every builder considering green without feeling overwhelmed. Beyond that it presents green options side by side making it easy to opted for a new method or material for whatever area. The view is that if builders would incorporate at least some items from each category:

General
Disaster Mitigation
Materials
Health
Site
Lot Choice
Water
Energy

then they are helping promote the cause and will most likely begin to implement further elements as they learn more and source more green materials. It's a process that would only move builders further into green as competition has begun to dictate.

Labels: FGBC