St. Louis Habitat Honored for 27 LEED Platinum Houses

Habitat for Humanity Saint Louis was selected as the U.S. Green Build Council – St. Louis Regional Chapter’s Growing Green Award winner in the residential category. Habitat was chosen from a field of 15 nominees in the inaugural award program. Through their Growing Green Awards, the USGBC-STL recognizes and celebrates “the people, organizations and companies that are transforming the St. Louis Region's built environment into a more environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy place to live, work and play.”

Habitat for Humanity Saint Louis built 27 LEED certified platinum houses as part of their most recent Build in the JeffVanderLou (JVL) Neighborhood.  These homes double the number of LEED certified projects in the St. Louis region. Prior to the Habitat Build, there were 24 certified commercial projects (at different levels) and three certified home projects in the region.  Nationally, as of March 24, 2009, only 230 homes were certified as LEED platinum.

Habitat will build another 28 houses in 2009 in the JVL Neighborhood just blocks from their 2008 Build.  The build begins next month. All 28 homes are planned for LEED certification. Habitat was chosen from a field of 15 nominees in the inaugural award program. Through their Growing Green Awards, the USGBC-STL recognizes and celebrates “the people, organizations and companies that are transforming the St. Louis Region's built environment into a more environmentally responsible, profitable and healthy place to live, work and play.”

Kimberly McKinney, chief executive officer of Habitat for Humanity Saint Louis says Habitat is committed to LEED certification in all the homes they build: “We realize that while building houses in partnership with our selected families helps them to realize the "American Dream" but we also understand that it is likely they will always struggle economically for the "extras".  As such, it is important to us to build the most energy efficient and sustainable house possible. As a non-profit, we must be good stewards of the money donated to us but to be able to extend that to being good stewards of the earth is also important.”

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