In the pre-crash days, sustainable building materials and low-flow toilets became part of the common real estate conversation: Slap “eco” on a home, the thinking went, and it was more valuable, not just to the earth but to the homeowner.
The most direct path to an officially green building was through third-party certification—if the building could check enough boxes on a list, it was green. LEED, which stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is the most prevalent. The checklist includes boxes for everything from air purifiers to locally sourced lumber to low-emission paint…
