Projects must already be underway and receive their first inspections by June 1 to be grandfathered in, according to the NAHB Research Center, which is the sole administrator of National Green Building Certification for single-family and multifamily homes, remodeling projects and residential developments.
Final inspections must be completed by Sept. 1 under the guidelines. After that date, the NAHB Research Center will accept only the National Green Building Standard (ICC 700) as a green rating system for the program.

Importantly, nothing else about the certification program and its processes will change. The current pricing will remain the same, the online Green Scoring Tool will still be available for scoring a project to the standard and all green verifiers across the county who have been accredited by the NAHB Research Center (listed online) will still be able to conduct verification inspections, according to the Research Center.
There are some exemptions to these deadlines that will be considered via the Contact Us form on the NAHBGreen website. Examples include:

• A builder who is building a development with multiple homes, has already committed to getting all homes in the development certified to the guidelines and has had at least one home certified to the guidelines by June 1, 2010, may be grandfathered in for continuing certification to the guidelines beyond the Sept. 1 deadline. In this case, a builder will be able to continue getting homes certified to the guidelines until that phase of the development is completed or Dec. 31, 2011, whichever comes first. Contact the Research Center as soon as possible to finalize details in writing by June 1, 2010.
• A builder who has completed a rough inspection by June 1, 2010, but, due to unique circumstances — such as complex finishes that require more than three months to complete, extreme weather delays, etc. — will not be able to have the final verification completed and submitted by Sept. 1, 2010, may also appeal for an extension if the request is submitted by Aug. 1, 2010.
  

Background
In 2004, a committee of NAHB members and industry stakeholders wrote the Model Green Home Building Guidelines to capture the essential principles of green home building and provide association members and affiliates with a basis for creating their own local green initiatives. The guidelines represented a “snapshot in time” and were never intended to be the enduring definition of what “green” means in residential construction.

As interest in green building grew, NAHB and the International Code Council began in 2007 to create a consensus-based industry standard for green home building that could be used as a basis for green home certification. The result of this effort, the ICC-700 2008 National Green Building Standard, was approved by ANSI (the American National Standards Institute) in January 2009.

The consensus committee that developed the standard used the guidelines in their initial discussions and planning, but ultimately developed criteria for the standard that exceeded those in the guidelines both in performance and scope. The ANSI development process also made provisions for the standard to be regularly updated and to receive public comment, unlike the guidelines.

In February 2008, NAHB launched its National Green Building Program, NAHBGreen, and the NAHB Research Center simultaneously launched its National Green Building Certification Program. At that time, the guidelines were used as the initial green rating system, with the expectation that the standard would eventually become available.

Now that the standard is available as a green rating system, certification to the guidelines is creating a significant amount of confusion in the marketplace and among policy makers. Furthermore, the standard — which is based on the IECC 2006 for the energy efficiency practices — is more relevant as an above-code green rating system than the guidelines.