CEE, Earth Advantage Partners, and City of Minneapolis to provide certification data to Green Building Registry
Portland, OR, November 22, 2021 — Earth Advantage®, Inc., the City of Minneapolis, and Center for Energy and Environment (CEE) announced today a partnership to deliver green and energy-efficient home data through the Green Building Registry® (GBR).
Historically, important information on a home such as energy ratings, third-party building certifications or solar electricity generation have not made it into for sale or rental listings. Thousands of dollars of value could be lost because trustworthy data was not available for listing agents, appraisers, and potential buyers to react to at the time of sale. That lack of data has prevented appraisers and lending institutions from accounting for those market reactions.
Since 2017, GBR has provided green home data to the public and real estate multiple listing services. The SaaS (Software as a Service) platform provides verified data directly from sources such as the U.S. Department of Energy’s Home Energy Score program, LEED® for Homes, National Green Building Standard (NGBS) Green Certified program, HERS® Index Scores, and other third-party verification programs.
This energy efficient home data is a product of a partnership between the City of Minneapolis and CEE. In 2019, the City and CEE began work to pass a time-of-listing energy disclosure policy for single-family homes. Following the program’s kickoff in January 2020, the City’s required pre-sale Truth in Sale of Housing (TISH) inspection now includes energy efficiency checkpoints. This energy data is displayed to potential buyers in a report and is positioned to gain valuable visibility and accessibility online through the partnership with GBR.
“In our first year alone, we increased the number of Minneapolis homes receiving energy performance information from 1,000 to over 6,000,” says Kim Havey, Director of the Division of Sustainability. “This is building important visibility around energy efficiency and allowing us to create pathways for residents to access resources to make their homes more energy efficient.”
David Heslam, executive director at Earth Advantage, stated, “The Center for Energy and Environment and the City of Minneapolis are leading the way in the mid-west for energy disclosure on homes. The TISH energy score program is in place to help keep housing safe in Minneapolis, the first program of its kind to connect health and safety to our homes. It’s great that the TISH energy scores will now be available on the Green Building Registry to help people more easily find this data and documentation when looking for homes in the Minneapolis housing market.”
About GBR
GBR is a single-source solution for the public and real estate industry to facilitate auto-population of verified green data into listings throughout the United States. GBR was built and is maintained by the 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Earth Advantage, Inc. Earth Advantage’s mission is to accelerate the adoption of high performance and sustainable, residential building practices. We focus on three key pathways for success: promoting green home standards, linking green home data to the real estate market, and providing professional and workforce training. Visit: the GBR website, us.greenbuildingregistry.com to learn more. For more information on Earth Advantage visit: earthadvantage.org
About Center for Energy and Environment
Center for Energy and Environment is a 501(c)(3) clean energy nonprofit with special expertise in energy efficiency that stretches back 40 years. Complementary areas of focus include independent technical research, program development and implementation, community engagement, policy advocacy, and project financing. Working across homes, businesses, and communities, CEE discovers and deploys the most effective energy solutions to strengthen our economy and improve our environment.
Media contacts
Tim Hanrahan | 612-244-2419 | thanrahan@mncee.org
Meg Garabrant | 503-310-9138 x62 | meg@greenbuildingregistry.com