Continued...

Coming Together

By the late 1990s/early 2000s, many organizations had started building bridges between the environmental and community development sectors, identifying their commonalities and shared goals, and beginning to work together. An early example of where the two trains met is Florida’s Housing Trust Fund, which would most likely have never been created had the environmental and housing groups not recognized shared goals (see A Meeting of Movements, Shelterforce Jan/Feb 1999). The number of such alliances is growing every day.

The first decade of this century also saw a major acceleration in green building writ large as it became better defined and best practices were packaged together in national certification programs. The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system was developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and launched in 2000. Since its launch, the LEED rating system has expanded to include a variety of sets of standards for categories such as schools (LEED-SCH), residential (LEED for Homes), and neighborhood development (LEED-ND). While none of the LEED programs speak specifically to affordable housing, its energy efficiency and health benefits quickly resonated with many in the affordable housing field.

Enterprise Community Partners, one of the leading providers of affordable housing development capital, launched its Green Communities initiative in 2004. Working with partners such as the Natural Resources Defense Council, Southface, and the National Center for Healthy Housing, as well as experts from USGBC, Enterprise developed its Green Communities Criteria specifically to meet the needs and goals of affordable housing developers. Enterprise also provided much needed training and financing through grants, loans and tax-credit equity to ensure that affordable housing developers had the tools they needed to incorporate green building standards into their projects.

Other national community development intermediaries also began to promote green building in affordable housing design and construction. LISC has actively promoted green building among its community development and affordable housing partners since 2004 through education, supportive grants and technical assistance. In 2008 LISC unveiled its Green Development Center to provide community development practitioners greater access to sustainable building and management principles.

In 2008, NeighborWorks America launched its Green Agenda program, which encourages its members to undertake green building and rehabilitation projects with incentives and funding opportunities. Although NeighborWorks had integrated green building and energy efficient techniques and practices into its National Training Institute (NTI) construction and operations courses for many years, adoption of the Green Agenda formally incorporated green building into practically every course, regardless of whether or not it is identified as a “green” training course. NTI now also offers a “Green and Sustainability” professional certificate program in its Construction and Production Management track.