Green Standard

Anyone heard of “ICC 700-2020 National Green Building Standard?”

Anyone had to write specs to this standard.

I don’t currently work on residential so I haven’t had the pleasure.

You can get a free download here: https://www.nahb.org/advocacy/industry-issues/sustainability-and-green-building/sustainability-and-green-building/ICC-700-National-Green-Building-Standard

Looks like someone had a lot of time on their hands. You have your work cut out for you.

This was a green rating system that was developed by NAHB and morphed into an ICC code/standard.

Is anyone familiar with the meat of this document? I have to say that I’m highly skeptical of anything produced by NAHB that they consider to be “green.” They have consistently shown over many years they are primarily interested in keeping initial first cost of tract-built homes as low as possible without much other consideration. External costs (i.e. environmental) and life cycle costs are not considered; operating costs are given short shrift.

Take a look at the NAHB website. None of their top priorities include anything to do with the environment, only the cost of building. Their policy handbook states that energy efficiency considerations are only to be based on cost concerns, and that paybacks must be ten years or less. Nothing about overall environmental or climate change concerns.

I would not expect a document produced by them to be anything close to what the state-of-the-art is for building green, or to give a hoot about why we are trying to build green buildings in the first place.

However, if anyone has knowledge of the document indicating that I’m wrong about this, please let us all know.