"a GREEN King alert!"
A few days ago after featuring a SURELY GReen blog on Green Goddess, Simran Sethi in a "green" discussion with Martha Stewart on how environmental stewardship relates to business, politics, and the broader social justice movement, I missed this energy star milestone that I thought I would share with you. It's definitely still worth covering: the towns of Brookhaven and Babylon on New York's Long Island have made energy efficiency the law, according to the New York Times. Both communities now require that all new houses built adhere to Energy Star homebuilding standards:
The new laws put both Brookhaven and Babylon in the vanguard of towns in New York State that have passed measures requiring a level of "green" home building. They are the first on Long Island to do so, but several other towns are considering identical or similar measures. SURELY Green AC's green energy offering to vanguard towns such as Brentwood, Santa Monica, Venice, Manhattan Beach, Pacific Pallisades, Malibu, Topanga Canyon, looks to help in these towns comply with current laws requiring a level of "green" home remodeling and building in Southern California.
We at SURELY Green AC are encouraging towns in both our Northern and Southern California locations to adopt this measure in and effort to change building codes to require. Neal Lewis, executive director of the Neighborhood Network, a Farmingdale-based nonprofit energy conservation organization that is credited with publicizing the home building standard and encouraging towns to change building codes to require it, was quoted as saying "“We'’re encouraging every town to adopt this measure by encouraging towns to change building codes to require it."
Energy Star homes will save homeowners money on energy costs by requiring, for example, certain types of insulation and installation techniques, and the use of energy-efficient appliances.
Builders aren't convinced this is a great idea yet because it creates different building codes for different towns, and only a handful of inspectors are trained in the Energy Star standards. In response, the power authority is providing $25,000 grants to towns that adopt the standard, and Brookhaven and Babylon have agreed to a three-part phasing in of the new requirement. Builders apparently have a reason to be concerned: another town, Southampton, adopted a similar measure, but it will only apply to moderately-priced homes -- McMansions get a pass... grrr... So you see, SURELY Green AC believes we have to be the change we want to see, here in California
New homes will certainly be built (builders estimate 2,000 in the next year just in Brookhaven and Babylon), so this is a good effort to use energy more efficiently (and to prevent blackouts, a major motivator for the law). According to Jeff McIntire-Strasburg, we already know, of course, that many schoolchildren in the area already have CFLs ready for installation...
Via SustainableBusiness.com
A Green King!
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