Michael Luzier wants to make it easier for homebuilders to be green.
Luzier, president and CEO of the Maryland-based Home Innovation Research Labs, thinks his company’s incentive-driven green building standards are a powerful tool for driving innovation in an industry that’s historically been slow to change.
Speaking Friday to Clark County mayors and local officials at an invitation-only luncheon hosted by the Building Industry Association of Clark County, Luzier said the National Green Building Standard, adopted as a voluntary standard by Clark County in 2010, is taking root in places as different as North Carolina and Indiana. In just six years it has become the most widely used green building standard in the residential development industry, accounting for 26 percent of green building certifications, he said.
A handful of Clark County builders are now meeting the standards for environmentally friendly homes that they believe give them an edge in the competitive marketplace. Among them are Troy Johns, owner of Urban NW Homes and chairman of the Building Industry Association’s green building council, who introduced Luzier at the Grant House luncheon.
The Home Innovation Research Labs operates as a testing and research firm that operates as an independent subsidiary of the National Association of Home Builders. Its National Green Building Standards were developed by an advisory group whose members included building code officials, product manufacturers, builders and public representatives. The range of performance measures — Bronze, Silver, Gold, and Emerald — within that set of standards allows builders to select designations that are suited to their own communities’ values and pocketbooks, Luzier said. It’s a system that encourages competition, as builders ratchet up their performance in order to win a competitive edge, raising the bar for the industry, he said.