2020 National Green Building Standard Now Available

Sustainability and Green Building
Published

The 2020 edition of the ICC-700 National Green Building Standard® (NGBS) has been approved by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) and is available for public use. The NGBS provides the roadmap for residential professionals to integrate green practices and features appropriate for their businesses and local housing markets. As of April 2020, more than 216,000 homes have been NGBS Green certified.

The 2020 edition is the fourth edition of the standard, which reflects significant changes based on evolving market conditions and feedback received over the past decade from those using the standard. This edition expands the application of innovative practices and offers additional options toward achieving certification. Changes include:

  • A new Chapter 12: Certified Compliance Path — for Single-Family Homes, Townhomes and Duplexes — that is intended to provide an entry point to certification for single-family builders, particularly production builders.
  • An expanded scope that now includes certification for:
    • Mixed-use buildings in their entirety as long as the residential portion of the building is greater than 50% of gross floor area; and
    • Assisted living facilities, residential board and care facilities, and group homes.
  • A new water-efficiency performance path using an index that generates a score relative to a standard baseline home and equates that to an NGBS certification level.
  • A substantially revised remodeling chapter that offers:
    • An option to utilize a phased approach for multifamily remodeling projects; and
    • A choice of prescriptive or performance compliance paths for energy and water efficiency.

The NGBS includes high-performance building practices in six areas: Lot Design and Development, Resource Efficiency, Water Efficiency, Energy Efficiency, Indoor Environmental Quality, and Building Operation & Maintenance.

The NGBS has several certification levels — Certified, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Emerald — providing residential building professionals options to integrate sustainability and high performance into their project at a level most appropriate for their business model, customer base and local housing market.

The NGBS continues to provide architects, builders and developers the flexibility needed to design and construct homes and mixed-use buildings that are sustainable, cost effective and appropriate for a home’s geographic location.

“The benefit of the NGBS is its flexibility — that I'm able to pick practices that work together rather than have a very prescriptive set of practices that I have to follow,” says John Barrows, NAHB Sustainability and Green Building Subcommittee Chair and founder of B3 Builder Group in Bridgehampton, N.Y. “I can tailor the practices from the options in the program so that I meet my clients’ budget a little bit easier.”

Download the NGBS for free at nahb.org/ngbs.

For more details about NAHB's sustainable and green building initiatives, contact Sustainability and Green Building Program Manager Michelle Diller. To stay current on high-performance residential building, follow NAHB’s Sustainability and Green Building team on Twitter.

Subscribe to NAHBNow

Log in or create account to subscribe to notifications of new posts.

Log in to subscribe

Latest from NAHBNow

Land Development

Oct 20, 2025

USPS Clarifies Cluster Mailbox Guidance

For more than 10 years, confusion over U.S. Postal Service (USPS) requirements for cluster mailbox units (CBUs) in new housing development has challenged builders nationwide. This issue recently resurfaced in the Greensboro, N.C., as developers in the area faced a lack of communication and arbitrary rules from local USPS representatives.

Sponsored Content | Safety

Oct 17, 2025

Put Your Guard Up: Guardrails Protect Everyone

Guardrail Safety Week is Oct. 20-24, and each year, NAHB partners with Builders Mutual, an insurance company focused on construction companies, in their Put Your Guard Up campaign to highlight the importance of installing guardrails on openings during construction.

View all

Latest Economic News

Economics

Oct 20, 2025

Non-Conventional Financing for New Home Sales Loses Ground in 2024

Nationwide, the share of non-conventional financing for new home sales accounted for 31% of the market per NAHB analysis of the 2024 Census Bureau Survey of Construction (SOC) data. This is 1.7 percentage point lower than the 2023 share of 32.4%. As in previous years, conventional financing dominated the market at 69.3% of sales, higher than the 2023 share of 67.6%.

Economics

Oct 17, 2025

Better Growth, Larger Deficits: CBO Fiscal Outlook

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) is a key nonpartisan score keeper that measures the effects of policy changes by the Federal Government. With several policy changes since January of this year, including the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA), stricter immigration, and higher tariffs, the CBO updated its economic projections through 2028.

Economics

Oct 16, 2025

Amid Market Challenges, Builder Expectations Rise in October

Even as builders continue to grapple with market and macroeconomic uncertainty, sentiment levels posted a solid gain in October as future sales expectations surpassed the 50-point breakeven mark for the first time since last January.