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Earth Advantage Institute is composed of multiple departments that run its certification, education, consulting and communications programs.
New Homes
Earth Advantage Institute’s New Homes program provides energy efficiency and green building certification to builders and homeowners in a streamlined process that starts during development and ends with completion of the home. With three third-party certifications to choose from, including the Earth Advantage® New Homes standard, builders can select the green building option that best suits their project and level of experience.
Green building programs include LEED for Homes, Earth Advantage and ENERGY STAR.
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Existing Homes
Earth Advantage Institute (EAI) will soon introduce Earth Advantage Remodel, a certified remodeling standard and green building program for residential additions and retrofits. The goal of the Earth Advantage Remodel standard is to assist remodeling contractors and homeowners with improving and extending the health, safety, comfort and viability of existing housing. This program will provide the needed design assistance, third-party verification, and certification that ensure the homeowner of a quality remodel built on the five pillars of EAI. This program will be offered to remodelers, property managers, and Do-it-Yourself (DIY) homeowners alike. The program is scheduled to launch in 2011. The existing homes department is also spearheading the roll-out of the Energy Performance Score (EPS), a miles-per-gallon style energy consumption and carbon rating for new and existing homes.
Community
Earth Advantage Community certification is an innovative community planning tool for residential developers and planners seeking to provide sustainable, healthy and more liveable neighborhoods. The certification provides a framework to showcase entire developments, as well as the homes within. To achieve certification, a residential community project must meet requirements in four categories: natural systems, built systems, connecting and transportation systems and community systems.
Commercial
Earth Advantage Commercial program is poised to become the industry accepted benchmark for the design, construction, and operation of high performance small commercial buildings. Earth Advantage certification for small scale commercial brings affordable, holistic, green rating systems to small commercial market, enabling developers to obtain a rigorous and recognized third-party certification for new buildings.
Note: Earth Advantage Institute is now accepting pilot projects for the Earth Advantage Commercial program pilot phase. During this phase, seven to ten projects will be screened and selected by the commercial team, which will work closely with project teams to provide extensive guidance, from design through certification.
Technical Services
The Technical Services department is composed of modelers, verifiers and quality control staff who assist in providing evaluation and testing of homes. They work extensively with certification program departments to verify that building projects meet certification standards. They are also available for third party testing of homes and for energy audits required for loan qualification.
Education
Earth Advantage Institute has assembled some fo the top experts in green building and real estate to educate professionals and homeowners involved in all stages of the green home construction and sales process. Course topics range from designing, building, and remodeling green homes to marketing, selling, financing, and appraising them.
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Carbon Advantage
Earth Advantage Institute is a founding reporter of the Climate Registry and participant in discussions of the Western Climate Initiative, working closely with peer organizations to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The Carbon Advantage group promotes a holistic approach to greenhouse gas reduction in the built environment through a number of innovative programs designed to minimize the carbon footprint associated with organizations, buildings, and other built infrastructure.
Specific activities include:
- Education of building industry professionals and consumers regarding climate change issues
- Monetizing built environment greenhouse gas reductions into carbon credits
- Greenhouse gas inventory development and third-party verification
- Consulting for clients on climate change risks, opportunities and carbon strategy
- Conducting research regarding the climate change impacts of the building environment
- Supporting EAI certification programs integration of climate change issues
Green Finance
The Sustainable Finance department strives to close the loop between the builder of a green home and the buyer. By creating products that benefit a green buyer, such as mortgages with lower closing costs or interest rates or discounted home insurance, green-built homes become even more attractive to potential buyers. Working with online real estate listings services to create awareness of energy efficiency and consumption ratings, Earth Advantage Institute’s Sustainable Finance Department is developing new appraisal metrics for attributing and supporting the value of green retrofits.
Marketing
The Earth Advantage Institute marketing department handles development of all outbound materials and communications to the organization’s various consumer and professional audiences, including homeowners, builders, designers, real estate professionals, appraisers, lenders, policymakers and media.
