A group of local and national “green” building organizations have banded together to launch Green Homes Northeast, a program that was implemented to fully integrate environmentally conscious building practices into Greater Boston residential real estate.

Funded by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborate and an anonymous donor, GHNE is hoping to use strategic business methods and industry education to spread the word about energy- and resource-efficient homes and prove that someday soon in the Bay State, it may just be easy being green.

While the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building award system is in place for commercial properties in the area, and Energy Star exists for environmentally aware residential construction on a national scope, to date an effective and collective green building system for new homes in the Boston metropolitan area has been absent.

“We feel that heretofore there has not been a cohesive influence and a continuity to pull this off in Boston. There is this movement going on and we want to keep it going toward our far goal: to make green building practices so common that we can quit saying ‘green’ because it would be implicit. Just saying ‘building’ would mean green building,” said Bob Murray, GHNE’s program director

GHNE was formed by a collaborative group of environmentally aware associations around the country including the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, the Hickory Consortium, The Green Roundtable, Vermont Energy Investment Corp. and Denver-based What’s Working LLC.

The program’s model was based on similar initiatives in major metro areas such as Atlanta, Chicago, Denver and San Francisco.

“The genesis of GHNE is that there are green building programs in other parts of the country that in many cases have been at this a little while and have begun to develop some good practices. There are a total of 38 programs in the country and we’re a part of that national conversation,” said Murray, who noted that although a lot can be learned from established organizations, GHNE has its own specific structure.

“The idea is to take the best practices from around the nation and adapt them to our region. You always have regional and local differences you have to attend to; this operation is national in scope but tuned to this particular area. It’s not a simple case of cut and paste,” he said.

‘The Way to Go’

One issue GHNE has had to address is the exact definition of “green building practices,” a process that involved sifting through each existing organization’s own established parameters.

“When you say ‘green building practices,’ what do you mean? Once choice could be to pick up LEED certification, which turned out to be one of our main influences. Ultimately we decided to take advantage of what was in place but form our own standards. We weren’t looking to start out with something from Mars discovered in a time capsule and apply it to this area,” Murray said.

GHNE defines a green building as a quality construction that uses non-toxic materials, conserves energy, provides good indoor air quality and is cost-effective to build and maintain. A green building is more than the sum of its parts; the integration of different building systems is key to reducing energy costs and safeguarding the health of occupants.

One key to making the concept an actuality was funding provided by the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.

“MTC provided the nucleolus for the whole operation. They got us started,” said Murray.

The endeavor is mutually beneficial for MTC; an investment in GHNE also works to further its own commitment to green building.

“We launched a very aggressive and ambitious program [called Renewable Energy Trust] two years ago to work with developers, builders, architects and others to change the way buildings and schools are constructed in this area. We’ve invested over $9 million to date and in over 40 projects to bring clean energy technologies into buildings and to ‘green up’ properties,” said Chris Kealey, MTC’s director communications and public affairs. “What we’re really after is a market transformation Â… to shatter some of the myths that surround green building. We’re proud to work with a broad array of stakeholders to construct green buildings and keep spreading the word that green is the way to go.”

Since GHNE has just begun, long-term funding has yet to be secured.

In order to shatter some myths of their own, GHNE has held events for environmental building professionals in green spaces such as the Artists for Humanity Epicenter in South Boston, which recently received a Sustainable Design Award from the Boston Society of Architects.

GHNE also plans to offer educational courses to a variety of industry professionals in order to increase awareness, which could lead to an increase in the number of green homes built in the state.

“The educational process is really something that has to be orchestrated. You’ve got to provide the necessary education and training for builders, suppliers and people in various trades. You have to go upstream and downstream in order to have an educated populous,” Murray said.

One problem that GHNE is attempting to rectify through its educational program is a perceived unevenness in the marketplace between producer and consumer.

“It’s a chicken-and-egg issue – which comes first, supply or demand? It can all get out of synch and you can have the problem that a builder can deliver but the market doesn’t value the product, or the other way around, which is kind of where we are right now. The buying public is getting savvy, but they just can’t find what they’re looking for,” Murray said.

In order to succeed, GHNE is separating itself from some other organizations by not beginning simply with a concept or an ideal. Instead, they are approaching the task of green building by implementing a business model, which seems a natural method when considering how the need for environmentally conscious building emerged.

“It may be that overly focused business thinking got us into this mess in the first place. People paid attention to the bottom line rather than the world outside. We ignored the stuff around us until the stuff around us became threatening,” Murray said. “But at this point it’s only the pragmatism of business thinking that can solve it. I don’t think you can lead this parade from a public or nonprofit side. Leadership has to come from using business and businesses to our advantage.”

Although working with area companies may help GHNE get where it wants to go, it also has the benefit of operating under a city government that is increasingly aware of the importance of green building.

“Because we have Mayor [Thomas] Menino’s Green Building Task Force, that may mean we have an advantage,” Murray said.

While local support is certainly necessary, ultimately the future of GHNE has further-reaching implications.

“What we’re doing has national and international importance. Everyone has to come to terms with this,” Murray said.