Green and Healthy Homes

Green and Healthy Homes: Adopting An Integrated Approach

Tuesday, July 20

Energy-efficiency retrofits impact more than how much energy a home uses. They also impact how healthy a home is for the people who live there. Obviously, retrofit programs should have a "do no harm" approach, ensuring that they do not create a toxic trap of indoor air pollutants when sealing a building for energy efficiency. But that is just a minimum benchmark; energy-efficiency retrofit programs can go much further. While working on a home to make it more efficient, they can simultaneously address health hazards such as lead, asbestos, and asthma triggers such as mold and indoor allergens.

On this Green For All and Efficiency Cities Network joint learning call we heard from programs that are integrating their energy-efficiency efforts with "healthy homes" strategies and funding.

• Ruth Ann Norton, Executive Director, Green and Healthy Homes Initiative, Baltimore

• Alice Kennedy, Project Manager, Baltimore Neighborhood Energy Challenge, Baltimore

• Dan Curry, Manager of Community Sustainability, City of Greensboro

Learn how an integrated approach can deliver all the benefits of energy retrofitting (energy savings, good jobs, pollution reduction, and increased comfort) while creating healthier communities, reaching more consumers, and creating a new network of program partners that can carry the green and healthy homes message.

Resources from the call

• Presentation from the call, including power point from all three presenters
• Baltimore Site Tour Booklet (GHHI)
  
• Comprehensive Home Assessment Form (GHHI)
  
• Increasing Demand for Home Retrofits: Community-Based Outreach and Mobilization (Green For All)