Our Green Initiatives is a commitment Lexington Luxury Builders has made to Green Building, Sustainable Development, higher environmental standards and protecting the planet, along with the specific, tangible steps we continue to take in support of this committment.
Like many builders, Lexington has made a commitment to green building and sustainable building practices. While building green homes is very trendy at the moment, everything green seems trendy at the moment; it is equally trendy for builders to make that commitment. We didn’t start our Green Initiatives program to be trendy or procure a green building certification. At Lexington, our commitment is to higher environmental standards and, more importantly, to a new paradigm of thought and ideas. Not for recognition, but because it’s the right thing to do. Our commitment is to our customers, to the communities in which we build and to the planet. But, mostly it’s to our children, and yours.
As we made the paradigm shift, the sheer number of opportunities to do things better, we didn’t know where to start. The answer became evident. We leave no stone unturned in our pursuit of energy efficiency, sustainability, higher performing buildings and environmentally responsible practices.
As we consider new building and development sites, we begin by analyzing the potential impact of the proposed project on the environment, and then design to blend harmoniously with the site and minimize that impact. Because we respect the environment, we protect trees and plant life, to the extent we can, during development and construction. During pre-construction planning, we map out site considerations and develop a Green Plan for the project, which carries as much weight as architecture or product selection.
There are no phases of construction that we now don't rethink from our new paradigm. Virtually no days pass without consideration being given to finding better building products and methods. Whenever feasible, we use recycled building materials to neutralize the impact of our projects on the planet. We seek and specify locally available building products, to minimize unnecessary transportation. We examine construction methods to better utilize materials, re-use excess materials and recycle that which we can't use. As but one example, we now mulch our own lumber waste on site, and use it in our landscape planting. Not long ago, that waste would have been hauled to land fills. Lexington now builds greener, more sustainable, more energy efficient, more environmentally responsible homes and neighborhoods.
We believe our commitment is a responsibility to create greener, more sustainable, more environmentally responsible homes and enduring, healthier neighborhoods which respect the heritage and traditions of the communities in which we build. Thus, we continue the process of improving and educating ourselves to discover better practices. Lexington’s officers have become Certified Green Building Professionals, a Certification bestowed by the National Association of Homebuilders only upon those builders who have completed specialized, rigorous courses of study in Green Building. Interestingly, Lexington’s constant effort to find and implement better ideas, building products and construction methods has produced another result – in addition to Greener homes – our homes are built better than ever before. It seems that all of the effort expended in thinking through Greener building practices has resulted in us realizing better building practices.
Lexington began developing and building Green Communities and Green Homes well before they were promoted or advertised. As our Green education deepened, we learned some astonishing Energy Facts, which compelled us to refine and adopt our Green Initiatives. When Green Initiatives was added to the website, the inclusion of helpful tools designed to further the Green education of our homeowners and potential homeowners was felt necessary. Foremost among these tools were to be concise definitions of commonly used Green Building terms; but no concise definitions were found. Disagreement over these definitions is common, with one encyclopedic definition of sustainability discovered referring to the cognitive dissonance caused by the definition. While a Glossary of Green Building terms was located, the exercise revealed how frustrating and complicated a Green education can potentially be for home buyers. Thus, at Lexington, we summarized our Green Commitment quite simply, and it is the opening paragraph of this chapter of our website.
We feel very strongly about educating our homeowners and potential buyers and are committed to getting them to share our commitment to our Green Initiatives. After all, protecting the earth will take all of us. In this regard, we encourage readers to enhance their own education and awareness by learning more about the Benefits of owning a Green Built new home and to adopt sound Green Living practices, to fully enjoy the benefits of their new Green homes and join our efforts. We also make these Resources available to our homeowners and the public, to advance sustainable living. Additionally, the Lexington Team is always willing to assist our homeowners with all energy efficiency and environmental questions. We encourage our homeowners and the public to utilize Lexington’s partner organizations to take full advantage of the resources they make available to assist with greener more sustainable living.
