3.3 Constructing Green with Karen Benner

“If I’m speaking to a builder, your home owner, your client is going to be more comfortable, they’re going to be happier; they’re going to be healthier; and they’re going to love living in this home compared to any other home that is less than, and that is something that I think isn’t top of mind for a lot of people when they think about green building. Health and comfort doesn’t always come.”

Karen Benner is a building consultant, who has worked in the residential construction industry over 20 years. Once she became aware of the impact construction industry has on the planet in early 2000s, she emersed herself to learn about green building and high performance building, and took it onto herself to inform, encourage and empower the home builders she worked for to build better homes. She has navigated the landscape of the construction industry to shift the mindset from focusing on short-term financial benefit to include long-term benefit, providing guidance to mitigate risks and manage projects with a new perspective of building green. While her experiences were primarily with production builders, Karen sees that once you commit to building sustainably, the business model can be successful and scalable even with smaller builders and developers.

Resources Karen mentions in her interviews:

· National Association of Home Builders

· Enterprise Community Partners