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Where Every Issue is a Green Issue| Providing Wisdom in Building a Sustainable Future | ||||||||||||||||||||
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 The Toronto Economic Development Corporation (TEDCO) and Monarch Corporation will develop the largest low-rise green residential community in Canada. The $100 million project will be a joint development, called Evergreen, offering environmentally friendly homes built to the new LEED-H standard in Toronto, Canada. The goal of the project is to demonstrate how this kind of green residential community can be economically viable, marketable and used as a model in the greening of the home building process. First occupancies are scheduled for late 2008. For further information contact the Toronto Economic Development Corporation, (416) 981-3869. |
Trends: State of the Market for Green Residential Development For many years GreenSage has been reporting on the growing demands for green products and green homes. We categorized the demands into three main interests based upon our decades-long deep knowledge of the green market and our customers. These three main interest categories for type of green buyer are: The Environment — sentiments of environmental responsibility; Energy Savings — a desire to save energy and realize lower utility bills; and Health Benefits — the real or perceived health benefits accorded to the occupant due to lower toxicity building materials and/or health-promoting building methods. Now comes a new report based upon a recent survey that adds numbers to our same categories. This report by Robert Charles Lesser & Co., (RCLCO), based upon their survey of over 1,000 homeowners, found a variety of home buyer motivations that may drive demand for green homes — categorized into the same three main interest groups. A few homeowners see homes as an environmental problem — more than 70% of potential homebuyers believe that their home has no impact or an “acceptable” level of impact on the environment. However, their research shows that of those who are aware that their home has a negative impact on the environment – approximately 20% of buyers – almost all want to do something to reduce their environmental impact in their existing home or in a future purchase. And a similar percentage of homebuyers indicated that they were looking for more environmental features in their existing home, but these features were not available when they last purchased. According to RCLCO’s consumer research, 36.4% of potential homebuyers currently identify home or community features specific to one of the above categories as their primary decision-making factor in their next home purchase. RCLCO believes that this percentage — approximately one-third of all buyers—represents the segment of all homebuyers that is today most likely to be swayed in the direction of purchasing a green home. RCLCO also projects a growing demand for higher-density residential products within higher-density neighborhoods, which are green because of their impact on reducing vehicle miles travelled and, therefore, CO2 emissions. When household growth driven by smaller households is combined with evidence of increased preference for higher-density housing, RCLCO estimates that potential demand for high-density housing is in the range of 4.5 million units over a 10-year period. The question on the minds of the building industry is – will buyers pay for green homes? In most cases, what buyers will pay for depends largely on the type of green buyer. You can read more about this report at Measuring the Market for Green Residential Development |
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