The state of California has it’s own Green home rating system; it’s called Greenpoint and Built It Green has recently announced it has reached the 10,000 certified houses milestone.

Leed, Energy Star, Net Zero Energy, PassivHaus, earth Advantage – these are the most popular eco-friendly home Rating Systems, but Built It Green’s GreenPoint is quickly catching up. Advertised as a “report card for green homes”, this new certification was designed to help homeowners, designers and contractors ensure the newly built or remodeled home meets the highest environmental standard. GreenPoint takes into consideration factors like a home’s energy efficiency, water conservation, indoor air quality, resource conservation, and livability. It’s this last item that makes GreenPoint stand out from other green home rating systems. It focuses on how a certain home interacts with the surrounding community, including distance from basic services like retail stores, schools and parks, as well as quality-of-life infrastructure like proximity to walkways, bike paths and recreational areas. Livability also refers to neighborhood density, pedestrian and bike access, and access to public transportation.

With a growing public interest in environment-friendly homes, it’s no wonder there is a plethora of green home rating systems out there, but unlike many of them GreenPoint has already proven it can improve quality of life and help reduce homeowners negative effects on the environment. 10,000 GreenPoint certified homes are currentlysaving Californians over 112 million gallons of water, and helping them to avoid nearly 9,000 tons of greenhouse gases.

via Earth Techling