Five of the six most-sustainable publicly-owned U.S. homebuilders are SAHBA members. According to Calvert Investments, a “global leader in Responsible Investing” with 13 billion dollars under management, the top home builders and SAHBA members ranked by sustainability in 2010 were #1 KB, #2 Pulte, #3 Meritage, #5 Lennar, and #6 DR Horton. What can the rest of us learn about good sustainability practices from them?

Sustainability takes into account the triple-bottom line of planet, people, and prosperity, sometimes described as environment, social responsibility, and profit. To be sustainable, a practice must be not only environmentally and socially good; it must also fit into a framework that makes economic sense. Furthermore with respect to the environment, sustainability encompasses a much broader scope than simply energy efficiency, although not surprisingly, this is what homebuilder sustainability practices in the past have primarily focused on. As I wrote about in the previous Green and Green article, new homes are significantly better than older homes, even those only a few years older, in terms of energy efficiency.

But in addition to energy-efficiency, sustainable builders also work to: 1. improve land use by building infill projects that reduce travel requirements and don’t need new infrastructure, 2. reduce homes’ water use, 3. decrease construction material waste and use local materials, 4. avoid using products that give off volatile organic compounds (VOCs) that pollute the air, and 5. track the climate impact of their operations. Concerning climate impact, it appears that none of the top builders are active participants in the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP).

In addition to Calvert’s Survey of Sustainable Practices by the Homebuilding Industry, information about the sustainability practices of some of the large builders the survey rated can also be found in KB’s 2014 Sustainability Report and the old, but still relevant, Lennar 2004 Corporate Responsibility Report. It appears that Pulte is on track to publish its own Environment, Social, and Governance (ESG) report in the future.

This story highlights large builders. Small builders, if you let us know your sustainability practices, we’ll publish a future article about you.

Dante Archangeli is the owner of Tucson Artisan Builders LLC, has been a Southern Arizona Home Builders Association member since 2000, and a green builder for longer than that. He also blogs about sustainability at GoodNewsForNature.com and terrain.org/author/darchangeli/.