Green Neighborhood with AHIP

Sustainable Methods for AHIP Practices (click PDF)

Fall 2011

Team members: Susannah Cadwalader, William Quinn, Eric Thornton

The goal of this project is to research some of the most well known up-and-coming sustainability building techniques, LEED, Passive House, EarthCraft, and Energy Star, in order to assess whether they would be beneficial for the Albemarle Housing Improvement Program (AHIP) to incorporate into their business plan. The possible benefits for supporting these sustainability measures are incentives such as tax breaks and/or new potential clients. With the current economic times, both of these possibilities are extreme positives for AHIP. Our team’s goal, over the course of the semester, was to research the pros and cons of EarthCraft, Passive House, and Energy Star, in order to present AHIP with ideas as to how they could benefit their clients while also benefiting themselves. When we met with the LEED group during the course of the semester, both our team and theirs came to the conclusion that ReGreen was the best option for AHIP if they wish to pursue sustainability in their renovations. While the other methods were potentially feasible for AHIP, they were generally outside of their scope of work; ReGreen still provides the many of the sustainable measures of the others that were researched; the downside is the lack of certification and tax credit. However, should AHIP wish to consider ReGreen, they will be able to provide a better service to their clientele, as well as benefit not only our community, but our planet.