Alliance for Environmental Sustainability

The GreenHome Institute primary service is to assist homeowners, developers, architects, designers, and consumers qualify their new or renovation single or multifamily residential construction projects for third party Green Building Certification. This certification may be achieved through a variety of sustainable residential development programs including LEED for Homes, Enterprise Green Communities, National Green Building Standard, GreenStar Homes Certification, and the DOE Home Energy Score. We assist people select the certification program that best suits them and help manage their project through the construction process towards certification. The goal is to create living spaces that are healthier, more durable that conserve energy and water, reduce overall living expenses, reduce reliance on the power grid, and minimize the impact on our environment. These housing units may also qualify for low-income tax credits and other tax credits and rebates.

All other program expenses

The GreenHome Institute provides educational programming that reaches over 10,000 YouTube Subscribers on a nearly weekly basis. The online training featuring the expertise of sustainable housing professionals reaches architects, designers, contractors, construction tradespeople, consumers, and others seeking to learn how to develop or renovate residential properties in accordance with sustainability principles. Some of the webinars qualify for Continuing Education Units for the American Institute of Architects (AIA), LEED Green Associates, Accredited Building Performance Institute, and the American Institute of Building Designers. In addition, the GreenHome Institute provides training for people to qualify as LEED Green Raters, LEED Green Associates, GreenStar Raters, GreenStar Professionals, and DOE Home Energy Assessors.

Thanks to grants and financial support from the Wege Foundation, the Cites of Ann Arbor, Grand Rapids, and Holland, enabled us to provide our training to local residents in making their homes more sustainable. The funding underwrites our efforts to provide housing energy assessments for persons living at or below 100% average median income in those areas which are primarily the elderly, veterans, youth, persons with special needs, and other vulnerable population groups. We are completing our 2nd year of funding from the Wege Foundation and have been approved for an increased amount for two more years. Our work in other cities also enabled us to provide services in the areas of technical training, plan review, housing assessments, energy modeling and resource identification for appliance upgrades and construction expenses with the goal of achieving a Green certification for the projects. (Continued on Schedule O)