Posted by:
Steve Dubb
New website provides guide to green building strategies
A new website, Green Affordable.org provides a wide-ranging information resource for how to integrate green building practices into affordable housing while keeping the affordable housing produced affordable. The site is a project of the Chicago Community Loan Fund, a community development financial institution (CDFI) that works throughout the Chicago metropolitan region. Given this focus, much of the information on the site is focused on Chicago-area resources. Nonetheless, there is much on this site that will be useful for a national audience, particularly for community development corporations (CDCs) and others that are seeking to adopt green building practices. For example, this web page provides a very useful summary of different “green” standards and what they mean. This web page has a useful glossary of terms. Perhaps most helpful is this Sustainable Strategies Table which provides an overview of a wide range of green building strategies, from the most cost-effective to the most intensive (but costly) options.
The site is organized into three main sections. One section, titled Chicagoland Resources, focuses, not surprisingly, on general sources of interest to green affordable housing builders in Chicago. Sub-sections within this part of the website include information about Financial Resources (broken down by section into: Construction / New Development, Education, Energy Efficiency, Land and Brownfields, Pre-Development, Renewable Energy and Renovation/Preservation), Advocacy Organizations, Government Resources, Educational Institutes, Green Supply Retailers, and Professional Services.
The second section of the site is titled Affordable is Sustainable and provides a broad range of resources that might appeal to a national audience, including some of the resources cited above. Subsections cover such themes as Incorporating Sustainable Building into Development, the Integrated Design Process, Costs and Benefits, and Policy Recommendations for promoting sustainable building.
The third section of the site is the news and publications section and, again, is of interest to a broad national audience. This section includes the Sustainable Builder, a green affordable building blog; a page of links to green building publications; and a list of upcoming green building conferences and events.