By providing practical guidelines for making affordable housing more sustainable, the Making Affordable Housing Sustainable session proved to be extremely informative.
Sustainable design increases health, and the safety, durability and affordability of housing.
In addition to reducing the environmental impact of housing, sustainable design can enhance community wealth by reducing the flow of money from low- income communities for energy, water and other services. Goal of the program is to provide direct technical assistance on sustainable design and construction to housing policymakers and affordable housing developers. Several nonprofit housing providers have adopted green building practices. For example, Habitat for Humanity has over 800 members of their Green Team. With funding from the U.S. Department of Energy, Environmental Protection Agency, and Georgia Environmental Facilities Authority, Southface has developed many design and construction educational tools.