Welcome to Your Online-Guide to ENERGY STAR Qualified Homes!

This guide is a joint project of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation's (LISC) Green Development Center (GDC) and the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) ENERGY STAR Qualified Homes program. Key to the GDC's goals is a focus on high-performance building, healthy neighborhoods, green jobs, and environmentally-friendly economic development. The GDC encourages a holistic approach to greening communities where green is not seen as an add-on or luxury, but as a sound strategy that needs to be fully integrated into programmatic goals. The Triple Bottom Line - financial, social, and environmental wellbeing - is central to the GDC's program position.

Solara, San Diego County, CA

Among green development's benefits are:

• Preserve family income and wealth by lowering utility bills and increasing home values
• Connect neighborhoods to green-related job opportunities
• Provide schools with better learning environments, and stronger operating margins
• Support healthier lifestyles by exposing residents to fewer toxic substances, lessening respiratory problems, and encouraging physical activities such as walking and biking

We hope that this guide will prove a useful starting point for your local LISC Office and your partner organizations. The guide has been designed primarily for on-line use, but there are several pages which have been designed with printing in mind. These may be useful to take along to meetings with your architects, contractors or Home Energy Rating System (HERS) Raters, and are identified with this icon:

Also, please keep in mind that this document will serve you best if it is regularly updated with new energy efficiency programs and ENERGY STAR Qualified Homes Standards. One of the reasons for making this an online guide with links to web pages was to make sure your office has the most up-to-date information available. The Green Development Center will try to keep the local offices apprised of new developments. Please help us to ensure a two-way flow of information by updating us if you hear of changes in local programs. If you need ideas on where to look, please just ask us!