Enterprise’s Updated 2011 Green Communities Criteria: Raising the Bar Again for Affordable Housing Developers
By Caitlin Jones
1 min read
By Trisha Miller, Director, Enterprise Green Communities
Tax Credit Advisor, March 2011: Evolution is critical to the success of any creative endeavor. Since 2004, Enterprise has partnered with leading affordable housing organizations and green building experts to deliver cost-effective green development strategies and move the market.
At the beginning of this journey, we created the first national green affordable housing standard – the Enterprise Green Communities Criteria – with the goal of making “green” and “affordable” compatible terms in the developer’s lexicon. Developers not only responded to the Criteria; many embraced it as their new operating system. In the first six years, more than 17,000 green affordable housing units have been constructed or rehabilitated to meet the Criteria. During this period, evidence has mounted that by producing and preserving green affordable housing to above-code green building standards, we can reduce transportation costs, support healthier children and adults, and lower greenhouse gas emissions.
