Green Communities Criteria
Our cost-effective, above-code green building program includes integrative design, site considerations, water, energy, healthy building, operations/maintenance and resident engagement. It is applicable for new construction, substantial and moderate rehabilitation, historic properties and adaptive reuse across both multifamily and single-family affordable housing projects.
In partnership with the International Well Building Institute and their WELL Building Standard, we’ve leveraged the best of these impactful programs, and created a path for affordable housing developments in the United States to create best-in-class healthy, efficient and environmentally responsible homes. Projects that achieve certification with the 2020 Criteria are recognized as certified under both Enterprise Green Communities and the WELL Building Standard.
Benefits of Our Approach
- Provides strategies to help developments move closer to zero emissions
- Outlines resilience criteria that helps better prepare homes to withstand local climate hazards
- Integrates healthy living practices, from ventilation to healing-centered design
- Delivers a dual certification with the WELL Building Standard
- Includes water standards that promote efficiency and protect against lead poisoning
- Uses an integrative design approach to establish collective priorities, giving residents a voice in the process
- Promotes economic and environmental justice
Learn more about our criteria and eligibility requirements.
Ready to Get Started?
We are passionate about turning our best practices into standard practices and are here to support you on this journey. To make things easy, we’ve created a certification portal with everything you need to complete your application.
In addition to a comprehensive overview of our application process, the portal has customizable templates, tools and calculators for your green building certification submittal. We also host regular office hours to answer your certification questions.
Green Communities Certification is available for all buildings that contain affordable housing units. Enterprise defines affordable housing as projects serving ...