"Our mission is to provide decent, simple affordable housing to families and we're committed to being able to provide affordable home ownership. By keeping houses highly energy efficient and by building small energy efficient homes lowers the total cost of ownership-- we are deeply committed to keeping not only the upfront expenditures, but also monthly costs affordable," said Habitat for Humanity CEO Reckford.
The program, which began April 2008 in the pilot stage, will run through summer of 2012 and aims to build 1,500 homes to EPA green building standards in 2009 and 2010.
While the program originally offered up to $3,000 per home to help reach Energy Star status, and houses that meet a “higher green standard,” which varies by affiliate from LEED to Earthcraft to Evergreen, receive a subsidy of $5,000. Moreover, Home Depot Foundation plans to build 5,000 efficient homes over the next five years. At the end of August, over 120 Habitat for Humanity affiliates will participate in the national rollout across 45 states
The process will be contributing to greenhouse-gas reductions, shedding 11 tons of annual household carbon and greenhouse-gas emissions, or the equivalent of plucking 250 cars off American roadways.
Home Depot expects to provide $50-million for charitable efforts in 2009, with the green-building effort representing about 12 percent of that. While Home Depot and Habit for Humanity began discussing the green program before the current recession and mortgage crisis, those problems have reinforced the need for it.
“This is unquestionably the largest scale accelerated initiative we’ve taken on to drive green building,” said Jonathan Reckford, the chief executive of Habitat for Humanity International. Moreover, the $30 million initiative, he added, would bring rapid payback for families in terms of lower energy bills.
Anne Alexandre.
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