Celebrating Earth Day, Every day
Last updated on December 17th, 2024
Ever since the first Earth Day back in 1970, there has been an increasing awareness of environmental issues. We all leave an impression, a “carbon footprint” as the saying goes, and the choices we make on how we live today may have long-term effects.
The term “green” has become very popular, and everyone wants to say they are “green” by putting green labels, green leafs and green catch-phrases on everything they do. I am not going to do that here. I’d just like to state that when we are talking about homes, today’s homes are significantly greener and more energy efficient than homes built 5, 10, 50 or 100 years ago. This greening of our homes is due to the combined efforts of building and land-planning engineers, architects, new codes, standards and regulations, improved products from our vendor partners, and our customers who want more environmentally friendly homes. So if you are moving from an older home to a new home, you are already on a greener path.
When you begin to design your new home, you have a wide variety of options to choose from today. Many options allow you to make choices to live a greener lifestyle, but even if you don’t choose every single high-efficiency option available, the standard features are already significantly more efficient than those from years past. These are some of the things that we already do with every home: we use engineered wood products made from fast-growing, renewable species instead of wood from old-growth forests; include energy-efficient windows and doors; energy-saving heating and cooling systems and lower-flow faucets and fixtures. And even before your new home is built, our communities are designed to minimize any disturbance of wetlands, environmentally sensitive areas, or threatened species. Stormwater run-off is managed to reduce flooding and siltation in our waterways.
For more information on Earth Day initiatives visit Earthday.org. And, if you pass by a Toll Brothers community, stop in to see our homes and find out more about the choices and options you can take to live greener. Visit our TollGreen.com website for more information on our green communities around the country.
