Description of individual or organization
• Directly help clients buy, build, sell, or retrofit green housing, as a private for-profit licensed Realtor specializing in green building and as a consultant offering residential green building research and advice. Help clients who prefer to do business with someone who shares their green-leaning values, regardless of property features they are transacting.
• Transform the housing market, such that:
• new construction and remodels requiring less than half the energy (regardless of fuel source) to operate, compared to existing comparably-sized homes, are widely available, affordable, in demand, and on track to dominate the market.
• housing and landscaping employ modern mainstream water conservation and indoor air quality techniques that are widely available, affordable, and in demand, and on track to become standard practice.
• Position housing stock to be on track to affordably meet carbon-neutral energy usage by 2030.
• Save the Earth. Beth positioned herself to effect change in the most critical place in the most critical industry. She was the first and is the most prominent Realtor to specialize in green building in the dominant market (DFW) in the dominant state (TX) in the dominant region (South) in annual U.S. home construction, where she can help transform the market in a prominent portion (homes – 22% of U.S. emissions) of the dominant sector (fossil fuel use by homes and buildings) causing greenhouse gases (“GHG”), which cause the most critical global environmental issue (climate change). Further explanation as follows:
• Critical mission: slow the growth rate of GHG emissions and then reverse trend.
• U.S. is in critical position to lead, because it’s world’s second-largest GHG emitter, and in next 25 years 75% of all U.S. homes/buildings will be new or renovated.
• Dominant cause of U.S. GHG emissions: operating homes and buildings, comprising 49% of U.S. energy use—more than industry and transportation combined. In fact, homes/buildings produce 70% more GHG than the transportation sector.
• “As Texas Goes, so Goes the Planet,” says Beth. How we construct in Texas sets the example for success or failure for the rest of the nation and therefore the world. Texas leads U.S. home construction, alone constructing 15% of all U.S. homes built last year, constructing 79% more homes than the next state, and dominating a region that alone constructed almost half of all U.S. homes.
• The building science is clear, we know how to reduce building sector GHG with proven, cost-effective, mainstream techniques.
• We can change fast enough to align with “Challenge 2030” building sector goals accepted by the global environmental community to avert the more significant impacts of climate change.
• What progress has been made toward this goal?
• 2004: Beth saw a critical disconnect in North Texas between growing consumer demand for more energy efficient homes and the few generally small custom builders who could supply new or retrofitted homes with greenbuilt features, as well as market confusion as to what constituted green building that was cost-effective and appropriate for DFW climate zone. She felt the green market needed another component to meet its potential and the planet’s needed timeline--a change agent helping speed market transformation. She envisioned a new business model: She would be the educated, credible professional connecting green-leaning buyers and sellers.
• 2005: She left the non-profit environmental advocacy field she had served professionally for 29 years, where she had mostly sought government action for environmental protection. Creating a new category of professional services in North Texas, she took 5 months of required real estate licensing courses and then established a for-profit real estate representation and consulting practice specializing in green building, where she would utilize the power of educated demand and supply to promote market transformation.
• This was a leap of faith, because North Texas green building then was a small niche, most Realtors and buyers were unfamiliar with it or had negative misconceptions about architectural style or cost, most builders or remodelers didn’t yet do it or erroneously claimed they did, no Realtors here were trained in it. In fact, the local Multiple Listing Services (MLS) here and in most of the country lacked adequate search fields to find the homes even if available, and the local MLS board had twice denied requests to add green feature/certification search fields!
• 2005-2008: To leverage her effectiveness in publicizing and legitimizing the new green building service category, Beth spent considerable time obtaining credentials and became the first:
• full-time North Texas Realtor (not directly affiliated with a builder) to specialize in green building
• Texas Realtor to earn the nationally recognized EcoBroker certification that provides training on energy and environmental issues relating to real estate transactions
• Texas Realtor (and only 13th anywhere) to earn the LEED Accredited Professional credential associated with U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building rating system, the internationally accepted benchmark for high performance buildings
• Realtor on the planet to earn the green credential “Quadruple Crown” of LEED AP, EcoBroker certification, Certified Green Professional (from Natl. Assn. of Home Builders), and GREEN (from Natl. Assn. of Realtors).
• 2009-present: In 2005 as a new licensee, Beth had affiliated with small independent firm Advocates Realty, which had enthusiastically supported her green building niche. When like many that firm went out of business during the Great Recession, in 2009 Beth and its other full-timers affiliated and have remained with a firm that had equally supportive culture and resources that were greater and more sustainable -- the largest Metroplex office of Keller Williams Realty. KW’s prominence and mainstream bona fides enhance Beth’s ability to transform the market:
• Beth’s Keller Williams Dallas Preston Road office is the #1 transacting office among all firms in the Metroplex, with 600 agents serving clients throughout North Texas. Each KW office is independently owned and operated.
• Founded in 1983 on a “win-win” belief system and a grand experimental premise that if a company focuses all its resources on building its agents’ sustainable businesses the agents will build the company beyond all expectations, KW grew from one small office to an award-winning, record-breaking real estate franchise with world’s largest agent count--a global powerhouse with more than 139,000 agents in more than 790 offices.
• Perhaps it was fate that KW began and remains headquartered in Austin where the world’s first residential green building program originated, out of which grew the “greenest of green” programs – LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) -- which is leading the change to green building worldwide.
• KW’s “sustainability promise” includes the belief that “greening your home is a quality-of-life choice for here and now, as well as a necessary step to protect our planet and its resources for future generations. We trust in the power of individuals and their ability to learn, change, and make sustainable choices. We believe that now is the time to start—and that change begins at home.” Initiatives have included:
• Authoring and publishing Green Your Home book “to help consumers and agents find an easy path to a healthy, money-smart and sustainable lifestyle at home”
• Becoming the first real estate franchise to make every office capable of paperless real estate transactions through KW’s award-winning “eEdge” system.
• KW’s website includes a search function to find its green-certified agents throughout the country.
• Now a veteran in her 11th year as a full-time for-profit state-licensed Realtor specializing in green building, Beth:
• has been in business longer than the national median Realtors’ experience.
• stayed in business serving clients even when a significant percentage of North Texas licensees left the industry during the multi-year Great Recession and housing downturn that began in 2008.
• may have been helped by her green building specialty rather than hurt by it as skeptics warned in 2005; many above-code builders reported that their product helped them outcompete their competitors during the Recession.
• estimates that 55% of her business has involved people or product with green leanings and that regardless of the type of property they are buying or selling, many of her clients simply prefer to do business with someone who shares their values. She believes strongly that in order to appropriately serve any client, she must be knowledgeable, experienced and skilled in handling all aspects of “regular” real estate in addition to handling added green features.
• like most Realtors has a non-salaried livelihood and is a self-employed independent contractor. As a one-person firm serving (per state regulations) under the auspices of a broker of record at a brokerage with a number of agents, Beth’s practice appropriately falls into the “small business (entrepreneur)” nomination category for the Green Source DFW Sustainable Leadership Awards.
• As Beth’s practice progressed, so did the green building market (for Beth’s unique roles at these important junctions see answers to other questions below):
• 2001: Frisco became the nation’s first municipality to require all new homes in newly platted subdivisions to be built to EPA’s “Energy Star for Homes” standards and additional Frisco water conservation and durability standards—all third-party verified.
• 2006: “Green Built Texas” voluntary residential program started with Dallas Home Builders Association, expanded statewide, and in 2016 has grown to 22,000 third-party verified homes built by more than 90 builders including cost-effective large volume builders.
• 2008: U.S. Green Building Council’s rigorous, third-party-verified “LEED for Homes” voluntary national program was launched.
• As of mid-2016, total homes certified has grown to 245,000, market share is significant at 23%, and 43% are in the affordable housing sector.
• Along with California, Texas is a leading state for LEED homes
• First major production homebuilder to commit to LEED was Texas-based MHI (Plantation and Coventry Homes), which has built more than 1,000 LEED homes--more than any other production builder.
• 2008: The North Texas Multiple Listing Service significantly updated and expanded its green features and certifications search fields.
• 2009, 2013: Dallas made green building mandatory for new residential construction in a two-phase process. Many other North Texas cities have passed or are in the process of passing ordinances with mandatory or voluntary green building programs.
• Texas leads the nation in number of Energy Star homes certified under this EPA program. Approx. 500,000 have been certified in Texas. North Texas alone has more than 155,000 Energy Star homes and more than 80 builder partners, 38 of whom are “100% partners” committed to building every home to this standard and who have together built more than one-third of the North Texas Energy Star homes.
• 2015: Architect Ed Mazria, Founder of Architecture 2030 and the “2030 Challenge” goals he issued in 2005, unveiled that per latest government analysis, fossil-fuel energy use for U.S. homes and buildings was below that of 2005, that the “business as usual” projected path was on track to remain at or below 2005 levels through 2030, and that by 2030 the “best available technology” projected path could take us to CO2 levels lower than seen in decades. In 10 short years, the building sector had met the Challenge of halting GHG emissions increases and reversing them to 2005 levels and is on track to reduce emissions to levels projected to avoid the most significant impacts of climate change. The critical industry in the critical country in the most critical environmental battle of all time has succeeded in making the necessary monumental change in its practices and is showing the world how to move forward to save the Earth.
• Earth Day 2016: Beth launched a new “Green Homes Available” page on her website, updated monthly, consistently showing approximately 2,000 as the number of third-party rated or certified homes for sale in North Texas in the 4 urban counties. This data helps educate the public that green is strongly going mainstream in North Texas. The same search run in 2009 showed only 12 homes.
• September 1, 2016, Texas takes a major step forward in energy efficiency for new homes, with mandatory and robust requirements statewide. In North Texas, homes built in the next 3 years must be third-party tested to need no more than half the typical energy of average same-size existing-home stock, and in 6 years new homes must use only about 45% of the energy of typical same-size existing stock. Beth predicts this will be the “tipping point” for market transformation, because unretrofitted existing homes will increasingly be seen as obsolete and energy remodeling will become widespread.
• How does she strive to be green?
• Directly serve the green market:
• As a Realtor, she directly represents green-leaning…
• buyers to help them obtain the elements they want in a new green home or to compare the energy-efficiency and other green features of existing homes on the market. Services unmatched by other agents have included:
• one-on-one education of her clients as needed throughout the home buying or selling process
• direct research in green building options for each client
• advising clients on post-purchase green retrofits they might accomplish if purchasing an existing home
• sellers to help them properly market their green-featured home to sell at highest price and fastest time. Marketing efforts unmatched by other agents have included:
• property-specific website with in-depth content on the property’s green features, architecture and special features, area amenities
• exposure in green building websites and publications
• on-site green building and native landscaping tours for the public and Realtors
• exposure about the property thru special marketing channels including Beth’s speeches, email distribution, media interviews, fairs/exhibits, seminars, and one-on-one networking.
• Unique services catering to special needs of green clients:
• In addition to directly serving clients in a standard commission-based real estate transaction as a state-licensed Keller Williams Realty agent where she is compensated only if a transaction occurs and only at closing, Beth fills needs by offering:
• Smart Green Now Consulting -- a unique consulting service that assists homeowners, builders and developers to achieve their green building goals in cases where they have no real estate to transact at that time. Services include real estate research, marketing, speaking/teaching, construction information/evaluation, green building program advice, developing/editing marketing materials, organizing tours, recommending green building education opportunities, training/evaluating sales staff.
• Energy Upgrade for your Existing Home – a free education and referral service connecting callers with energy efficiency vendors to help them “energy upgrade” their home and improve resale value.
• Agent-to-agent Referrals – helps buyers and sellers worldwide find local green-trained, experienced real estate professionals if Beth’s location isn’t a good fit for the client.
• Agent Consulting – To help their green-leaning clients, real estate professionals may retain her services including research, marketing, tours.
• Beth can help buyers budget, evaluate and contract for any and all of the main elements of building a custom home--land, architect, builder. Most Realtors do not provide such services.
• Helping a client buy or sell a lot on which to build a custom home often compensates the Realtor less than minimum wage for her time, but Beth serves this niche because it’s an important component in growing and serving the green home market.
• Beth works throughout North Texas, in a much larger territory than typical of most agents, because her target practice is “demographic” – the kind of people and product – rather than “geographic”.
• Her business practice includes enthusiastically accepting and effectively representing clients who buy or sell smaller homes.
• Such homes cause less GHG and other air pollution compared to larger homes of equally efficient thermal envelope and mechanicals, and they are often preferred by green-leaning clientele for their efficiencies in energy and other green and economic parameters.
• Smaller homes often have lower sales prices and thus are not as lucrative for Realtors, whose commission is typically the same percentage regardless of sales price. As a result, Beth felt this market was underserved, and she vowed to give this clientele the same expertise and attention as more lucrative endeavors.
• In one case, Beth went to the extraordinary step of coordinating a complicated, lengthy effort to change deed restrictions to apply to one lot so her clients would be allowed to build the smaller home they desired.
• Grow, publicize and support the green housing market:
• Beth’s 10+ years as a licensed and uniquely credentialed Realtor, her previous 29-year career as professional staff for Texas and national environmental advocacy organizations, her training as an educator, and her extensive formal and self-education in green building have given Beth unique experience and skillset from which she draws to place herself in positions to directly help green market expansion. Examples include:
• frequent radio, newspaper, and magazine interviews
• authoring/providing research for articles in local and national magazines
• In 2008, Beth served on the months-long MetroTex Association of REALTORS® task force that secured approval for a major green update that placed the North Texas Multiple Listing Service among the early adopters of a national wave that is yet to be completed 8 years later among the other 880 individual MLSs.
• Believing fervently that appropriately educated professional players within the market is an essential component for market demand and supply to function properly, she helps educate:
• other Realtors about green building (11 events/courses at last count) even though they compete with her for seller and buyer clients.
• builders even when she has gotten no business from them.
• Beth helps increase demand and understanding of green homes by providing extra education, support and effort to serve buyers and sellers of greenbuilt homes whether her clients or not:
• Her website has extensive green building educational content posted and linked, and a “Green Homes Available” page is updated monthly showing the number of third-party certified homes in main North Texas counties
• She creates opportunities to publicize and conduct tours of greenbuilt homes:
• at her listings, regardless of whether a tour is needed to sell the home. Examples include:
• The Woodson Place Conservation Development: 8 major weekend events
• Estates at Greenspoint subdivision: 4 events
• as a pro bono speaker/tour-guide at significant catalyst properties other than her listings. Examples include:
• Grand Opening public event for Nevada Court affordable green subdivision and Green Built Texas program, Denton, TX: pro bono publicist, organizer, exhibitor, presenter tourguide – attended by 1,000
• Bannister House tour-guide with GreenCraft Builders, Grapevine, TX: home certified into LEED and other green building programs
• Public tours: Beth gave tours and recruited other agents to help with 15 full days of tours attended by 4,000
• Builder education:
• Field trip of Sunbelt Builders Show (annual industry event attended by 2,000): tourguide
• Green Built Texas membership event and tour: tourguide
• Her business marketing materials overtly emphasize her green specialty. In 2005 when green building was still a fringe market in North TX, her emphasis in what was perceived as a narrow niche was considered a brave step for a new agent. Examples include:
• Her motto: “connecting, respecting buyer, seller, builder, community, Earth”.
• Her call to action: “Let me help you buy, build, sell, or upgrade your green home!”
• Business card, brochure and website homepage all give a “cheat sheet” as to how greenbuilt homes are built better for people, pocketbook and planet:
• energy efficient - lower bills
• comfortable, quiet
• lower maintenance, durable
• healthier indoor air
• reduced water usage
• conserving resources
• less utility air pollution
• improved resale
• Beth has conducted more than 75 presentations/courses/exhibits at green building events, with most open to the public, others aimed at educating developer/builder/Realtor audiences.
Leadership (demonstrates leadership through example, knowledge, attitude)
• Example:
• A Founding Member and the only REALTOR® to have served as a Director of the Home Builders Association’s Green Built Texas Council. In addition to helping draft the Green Built Texas™ Program (discussed below), Beth:
• chaired its inaugural year Marketing Subcommittee
• and served one of the longest tenures as Director, helping lead the Council in its critical first 4 years.
• Educates the green building industry in national venues:
• National keynote speaker at one of the nation’s leading luxury marketing meetings’ annual Green Tour and Eco-Symposium, the Scottsdale Arizona Luxury Home Tour.
• Presenter/panelist, National Green Building Conference, National Association of Home Builders.
• Clients have included leaders in local and statewide green building and land preservation and restoration efforts:
• Award-winning Woodson Place Conservation Development -- first development ever to be recognized under Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Lone Star Land Steward Award
• The Estates at Greenspoint in Prosper, TX by award-winning developer Wilbow Corp. – thru design guidelines co-written by Beth, this was first North Texas development to voluntarily require its builders to meet third-party green building programs and additional green and architectural features
• “Osage Moon” wildlife preserve with restored native prairie and Gary Olp-designed passive solar home 39% more efficient than same-size code-built home
• Beth enrolled her firm as the nation’s first real estate agency to show commitment to energy efficiency by joining Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET), the national organization that sets standards for quality of energy rating services and annually hosts the premier national forum on home energy performance and financing.
• Authored first-ever continuing education course for North Texas Realtors on green building (see more below).
• Beth and her husband Arthur Kuehne served as general contractors to build their own personal green home as an educational catalyst illustrating mainstream, cost-effective green building:
• It has received third-party certification into Energy Star; tax-credit recognized as being at least 50% more efficient than code to heat and cool; “HERS rated” at 53 (47% more efficient overall than a 2006 code-built home)
• It is approved awaiting final documentation for certification into LEED, EPA’s Indoor airPLUS, DOE’s Challenge Home (i.e. Renewable Energy Ready Home), and EPA’s WaterSense program.
• Knowledge:
• Authored and instructed the first-ever state-approved continuing education course for Realtors about North Texas residential green building and has presented it in venues throughout North Texas.
• Authored and instructed segments of day-long professional development courses offered by 3 different education providers for builders and architects.
• Approved instructor for Natl. Assn. of Realtors multi-day green designation course
• Green building and building science courses she has completed include the following, some of which required self-funded travel throughout the country:
• the first-ever "Green Building for Building Professionals" course by National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)
• first Board-offered green building designation course by National Association of REALTORS (NAR)
• U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) "Technical Review: LEED for New Construction" and “LEED for Homes Workshop”
• “Building Science Fundamentals” by Lstiburek and Straube of Building Science Corp.
• Energy and Environmental Building Alliance's (EEBA) "Houses That Work" and "Selling High Performance Homes"
• U. S. Department of Energy / Dallas Builders Association "Challenge Home and Net Zero Home" training
• EcoBroker's courses on energy efficiency, environmental issues, green marketing
• Austin Energy's "Green by Design" and "Cool House Tour"
• national home performance conferences by NAHB, EEBA, RESNET and Affordable Comfort Inc.
• Realtors Land Institute's "Creative Land Planning"
• Energy Efficient Green Building Institute's "Residential Building Performance Technician" (3 credit courses), "Green Interiors", and "Secrets of a Texas Net Zero Home" and "Healthy Home" by award-winning builder Jim Sargent
• numerous green building and marketing classes and presentations at Dallas Builders Association
• “Appraisals and Mortgages for Greenbuilt Homes,” by Green Energy Money
• Attitude
• It is often said that “if anybody can do it, Beth can.” She is out to prove that “green sells,” and she is naturally a “whatever it takes” kind of person--hard-wired to persevere, undaunted by challenges, knowledgeable and creative enough to find a way to achieve goals even where previous attempts failed or success was thought unlikely. Examples include:
• Real estate:
• Finding the right buyer at the right price to carry on the work restoring native prairies and woods on a wildlife preserve beyond the outskirts of the Metroplex
• Overcoming floodplain, creek erosion, and deed restriction questions to sell a Bachman Creek property to qualified buyers, with multiple offers and a backup contract
• Attracting multiple offers and a quick full-price sale of a passive solar earth-sheltered home though market response had lagged under a previous agent’s listing
• Attracting multiple offers and quick sale of a geodesic dome home in a rural subdivision at top neighborhood price after months of no market response when listed with another agent
• Combining creativity, construction and floodplain knowledge, and commitment to her clients’ goal of building a custom green home in a close-in location but within budget, she found an overlooked but beautiful wooded lot, worked with city officials and builder to determine that her clients’ desired home was physically buildable, and coordinated the successful effort among multiple entities to change deed restrictions to allow the smaller size home her clients wanted.
• In more than half of her successful transactions representing sellers, her attention to detail, marketing, and negotiation skills got the job done even though previous efforts by agents or sellers had fallen short of closed transactions. Beth knows how to market in general, and she especially knows how to market green.
• Environmental advocacy:
• Beth was an important player in passing federal legislation that provided wilderness and other protections to tens of thousands of acres of East Texas and Oklahoma national forests, despite longstanding opposition from locally powerful logging interests.
• She was the staffer who served the Arkansas-Oklahoma volunteer coalition that secured the U.S. Forest Service management decision to eliminate clearcutting per se in the Ouachita National Forest.
• Beth served in various important staff roles in Washington for the Alaska Coalition (largest environmental coalition ever to assemble at that time) during the epic multi-year Alaska Lands battle (“bill of the century”) that passed federal legislation protecting more than 100 million acres of Alaska’s public wildlands for future generations, despite well-funded opposition nationwide from Big Oil, Big Timber, Big Mining, and the Alaska congressional delegation in whose favor such an issue would normally be decided due to typical congressional deference.
• Yukon River:
• At age 28, Beth wanted to see wild Alaska and some of the lands she had helped save, to canoe a river from headwaters to ocean, and to take a long trip, and though she had never taken more than a week-long canoe trip she saw no reason not to accomplish all three by canoeing the length of the famed, mighty Yukon River from near its source in Canada’s Yukon Territory and across the breadth of Alaska to the Bering Sea on Alaska’s west coast. She recruited companions from among competent canoeists she knew; the only ones who signed on for the 3-month, 2,000-mile trip happened to be women; and the journey became the first known all-female expedition to travel the length of the river in non-motorized craft.
• Yukon Wild:
• Two months before the expedition, ignoring publishing protocol, Beth simultaneously submitted book proposals to multiple publishers to contract for her Yukon Wild book that she would write after the trip. She had offers from multiple publishers—an amazing feat for an unpublished writer, for a book not yet started let alone finished, about a trip that hadn’t started. Signed with a small press; the book was endorsed by prominent members of Congress, female political leaders, and wilderness advocates; it went into several printings which is good for a small press; it remained in print for a longer-than-average ten years; and it remains a sought-after collector’s item.
Environmental impact (demonstrates a positive impact on the local environment via policy change, product offering, significant volunteer contribution or other achievement)
Homes built or retrofitted to have better-than-code thermal envelopes and mechanicals use far less energy to operate. Energy to operate homes and buildings is the largest segment of U.S. GHG (comprising almost half of GHG), and homes comprise almost half of that largest segment, and generating electricity to operate homes and buildings also causes other air pollution in quantities and kinds particularly harmful to North Texas residents. Thus, activities that speed local market transformation to new and retrofitted homes and buildings requiring far less energy to operate (regardless of fuel type) and/or use on-site renewable fuel create a positive impact on the local environment. Some ways in which Beth has helped promote market transformation include:
• Policy Change
• Advised environmental advocacy activist who participated in negotiations resulting in Dallas’s mandatory green building ordinance for new residential construction. Pro bono.
• Conducted research on green appraisals and presented to the South-central Partnership for Energy Efficiency as a Resource (SPEER) to inform their initiatives in a joint effort by industry leaders, government officials, and environmental organizations to accelerate the adoption of energy efficiency as a low-cost energy resource in Texas and Oklahoma. Pro bono research, travel, conference dues.
• Advised Mesquite city staff and selected council members on area green building programs and state of the green building industry in reference to Mesquite’s planning and subdivision approvals. Pro bono.
• Presentation and Q&A to City of Plano Sustainability Department staff about green retrofits for existing homes. Pro bono.
• Product Offering
• Beth helped draft the Green Built Texas™ Program that has guided builders in constructing more than 22,000 homes that are significantly more energy efficient than code has required, as well as superior in indoor air quality, durability, water conservation, and material conservation. Such programs help builders know what practices to use so homes need much less energy to operate, and the third-party verification required by such programs helps assure that what the buyer and builder intended actually got built and built correctly.
• Beth was the only REALTOR® to have served as a Director of the Home Builders Association’s Green Built Texas Council, not to mention the only HBA Director with her professional environmental advocacy background.
• The voluntary program’s Director Phil Crone stated that “As Texas’ first EcoBroker, Beth’s unique knowledge and perspective proved invaluable to establishing Green Built Texas as one of the nation’s premier green building initiatives.”
• She created and dominates the added specialty of local real estate agents who are independent from builders and are qualified and active in helping people buy or sell greenbuilt homes.
• Before her decision to create a business model to fulfill this space, it was impossible for the vast majority of prospective homebuyers (including green-leaning activists) to be aware of building science and green building techniques appropriate to local climate, to evaluate the cost-effectiveness of various construction methods that claimed green benefits, or to find and negotiate for such homes. This situation was hampering market transformation to green building.
• Market transformation to recognize and reward energy efficiency is a byproduct of the way she conducts her business.
• Her commitment to public education and publicity, and her expert advocacy for buyers, sellers and retrofitters of green properties have helped legitimize and grow market share for energy efficient homes.
• Her clients benefit from her green knowledge and credentials unmatched in her market area and nationwide. Not only does she bring ground-breaking green real estate credentials (as mentioned elsewhere), but she brings the credibility and skills from a previous 29-year professional career staffing statewide and national non-profit environmental advocacy organizations in Texas and Washington, D.C.
• (See “How She Strives to be Green” above for a variety of unique services she provides to address the unique needs of the green building market.)
• Significant Volunteer Contribution
• Her work over the course of four years of monthly half-day meetings to create and promote the Green Built Texas green building program of the Dallas Builders Association was entirely pro bono.
• Two-thirds of the approx. 75 speeches/courses/tours/exhibits that Beth has presented have been pro bono. This has included travel to Austin, East Texas, Arizona.
• Other achievement—
Community impact (demonstrates commitment to DFW green community through involvement with causes, business ventures or organizations)
• Causes
• Advising North Richland Hills activists in what became their successful effort to defeat the city’s anti-solar-panel ordinance
• Advising/facilitating on continuing education approval and content for courses about residential solar power content, sponsored by North Central Texas Council of Governments and State Energy Conservation Office and offered to Realtors and appraisers statewide
• Private educational dialogue with solar power activists from two local organizations on how to surmount appraisals as a barrier to more widespread adoption of on-site solar power
• Business Ventures
• Consulting for developers and builders seeking to design and build green-leaning subdivisions and homes, including:
• Organizer and guide for on-site industry educational tour sponsored by Wilbow Corporation at Nevada Court affordable Green Built Texas subdivision, Denton
• Urban Land Institute quarterly meeting – presenter with Wilbow Corp. about unique subdivision green building design guidelines co-written by Beth
• Plantation Homes: Special guest speaker and tour-guide at their LEED certified model home
• Organizations
• North Texas Renewable Energy Group:
• upcoming 7th annual DFW Solar Tour:
• First Realtor ever to be a sponsor
• Scheduled to make 4 presentations highlighted in Tour publicity
• In a unique effort, Beth has organized KW agents to help the Tour as volunteer greeters at Tour sites, to publicize the Tour by neighborhood door-knocking and/or other promotion, and to learn more themselves about solar power.
• monthly meeting: presenter, with added research on solar panel sales and appraisals
• U.S. Green Building Council, North Texas chapter:
• first Realtor to join
• served on its Education Committee organizing on-site tours of green-certified buildings
• monthly meeting: presenter/panelist
• Dallas Sierra Club:
• Green Homes Tour fundraiser: paying exhibitor, twice
• “Step It Up” clean air event, presenter and exhibitor
• general meeting: main speaker with Arthur Kuehne
• newsletter: authored “Dallas Area Residential Green Building Program Unveiled”
• Live Green in Plano:
• volunteers: classroom presentations twice, field trip tour once
• Sustainability Department staff: classroom presentation
• Live Green Expo: paying exhibitor and unpaid presenter multiple times
• Public education:
• Renewable Energy Roundup and Green Living Fair, largest renewable energy fair in the South – presenter
• JC Penney national headquarters staff
• Earth Day Fair exhibitor, twice
• “Lunch and Learn” presenter
• Green Home, Health, and Safety Fair, Frisco, TX: exhibitor
• “Earthfest”, Addison: exhibitor and presenter
• University of Texas at Dallas -- continuing ed. teachers, environmental studies class: researcher/presenter
• Lewisville ISD continuing ed.: presenter
• “Think Green Texas!” Environmental Conference and Expo, Canton, TX: exhibitor and presenter
• Naturefest at Mineola Nature Preserve: exhibitor
• Eaglefest in Emory, TX: exhibitor and green home tourguide
Other reasons for your nomination
I saw first-hand how Beth serves her clients directly and is also a catalyst to speed market transformation. Her skill set, experience, and knowledge helped me sell my Garland home and build a new ENERGY STAR home at a great price in a master-planned community and ready for move-in in only 5 months. With the energy upgrades Beth identified and negotiated, it needs 45% less energy to operate than a new code-built home and even less energy than my smaller older home! Beth provided great advice on the energy upgrades available and which of those would provide the best bang for the buck. As we were building the home, the salesman, project manager, and energy auditor all commented about Beth’s depth of energy knowledge and how much they learned from her! Soon after Beth negotiated this transaction, the builder—one of the largest in the U.S.—committed to publicly market the HERS Index showing their homes’ efficiency. I wouldn’t be surprised if the education the builder got from Beth was a big factor in this commitment!
