The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) has announced a new initiative to offer green building training to their grantees and other affordable housing organizations. The free courses include Introduction to Green Building for Affordable Housing, Executive Decision Making, Best Practices for Green Building Operations and Maintenance, Financing Green Building, and Energy Performance Contracting for Small PHAs.
LEED for Neighborhood Development Rating System Launches as Benchmark for Green Neighborhood Design Environmental Leaders Partner to Advance Walkable, Sustainable and Economically Thriving Communities
Washington, D.C. – (April 29, 2010) – Today, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) announced the launch of the LEED for Neighborhood Development green neighborhoods rating system. LEED for Neighborhood Development integrates the principles of smart growth, new urbanism and green building and benefits communities by reducing urban sprawl, increasing transportation choice and decreasing automobile dependence, encouraging healthy living, and protecting threatened species.
Kaid Benfield is a Smart Growth America board member and the director of NRDC’s Smart Growth program. This post originally appeared on his NRDC Switchboard Blog. Our thanks to him for letting us run it in full here. -Ed.
I make no pretense of objectivity on this one. I’ve been working on LEED for Neighborhood Development for seven long years. It’s now finished and awaiting final approval by the three founding partners – NRDC (in consultation with the Smart Growth America coalition), the US Green Building Council, and the Congress for the New Urbanism.