Pima County, Ariz. (Nov. 15, 2011) – Pima County’s efforts to “go beyond code” to provide guidelines for Green Building and sustainable projects are included in a new federal guide to “Creating Effective Green Building Programs for Energy Efficient and Sustainable Communities.”

The Going Beyond Code Guide is designed to help state and local governments design and implement successful “beyond code” programs for new commercial and residential buildings.

These guidelines, such as those developed by Pima County, encourage energy efficiency and other sustainable elements in the construction and operation of buildings, without having to mandate them by creating additional building codes.

Rich Franz-Ünder, Pima County’s Green Programs Manager in the county’s Department of Development Services, helped shape the Going Beyond Code policy options noted in the Guide to Green Building.

Pima County is included along with the cities of Scottsdale, Santa Fe, Albuquerque and Longmont, Colo., as an example of best practices to emulate.

The guide to “Creating Effective Green Building Programs for Energy Efficient and Sustainable Communities” describes model green building guidelines from around the United States.

The goal of Green Building, Franz-Ünder said, is to advance energy efficiency by reducing waste and by building water and energy efficiency into the construction of homes and businesses.

The new document is based on the Southwest Energy Efficiency Project’s (SWEEP) “Going Beyond Code” guide, which also includes Pima County. The new guide was prepared by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Program in collaboration with SWEEP.

The guide, which is free, is available online and can be downloaded as a pdf  file at http://www.energycodes.gov/publications/resourceguides/packets/gbc_guide/GoingBeyondCode_LoRes.pdf.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 15th, 2011 at 10:31 am and is filed under Environmental Quality, Health, Housing, Natural Resources, Pima County, Solar Energy, Southern Arizona, Tucson. Tags for this post: commercial, EPA, Green Building, residential, technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.