Zero Trans fat Homes?

Michelle Kaufmann, an architect known for her line of prefab homes, recently proposed a standardized "nutrition" label to communicate the benefits of a green building to potential buyers. She notes that we traditionally buy a home based on qualities like location, curb appeal, size, and upfront costs, but exclude important factors like sustainability, healthfulness of the indoor environment, and the cost of operating a home.

The purpose of the sustainability label is to quantify the advantages of a green home in easy to understand terms. Her proposed label, similar to the nutritional label found on packaged food products, lists key figures such as energy consumption, carbon dioxide emissions, and insulation values. The label would allow consumers to compare the long-term cost benefits of homes on the market and a home's contribution to improving the environment. In the same way that nutritional labels have changed the way people buy food (for example, the recent push for zero trans fats), Michelle Kaufmann hopes that a standardized sustainability label will change the way people buy homes.

The label could also be married to existing green building standard, such as LEED. The LEED distinction on the label would promote USGBC's brand, and listing key figures on the label will help distinguish a LEED building from one built using traditional building standards.

For more information and an example of a "sustainability label" see Michelle's blog entry and her whitepaper.