KB Home, Los Angeles (NYSE:KBH) today announced that, for the seventh year in a row, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has recognized the national homebuilder’s efforts to construct water-efficient homes and its contributions to the WaterSense program by awarding it the 2017 WaterSense Sustained Excellence award.
The only home builder to be recognized in 2017, KB Home has won three consecutive WaterSense Sustained Excellence awards.
KB Home awarded the WaterSense Sustained Excellence Award for water-efficient building practices
“KB Home is proud to have participated in the WaterSense program from the very beginning,” said Jeff Mezger, chairman, president and CEO of KB Home. “The recent drought in California thrust water efficiency and the need for water conservation to the forefront of the public’s mind. While we strongly believe that building water-efficient homes is the right thing to do from a sustainability standpoint, we are also finding that WaterSense acts as a strong market differentiator for us, making water-efficiency good for the environment and valuable for our homeowners.”
The EPA presented the 2017 WaterSense awards last week at the WaterSmart Innovations Conference in Las Vegas to recognize recipients for helping Americans to save water, energy, and money. Jacob Atalla, Vice President of Sustainability for KB Home, was in attendance to accept the award on behalf of KB Home.
In 2016, KB Home installed nearly 82,000 WaterSense labeled fixtures, which deliver a 20-30% increase in water efficiency as compared to typical fixtures. Cumulatively, KB homes are outfitted with nearly 400,000 WaterSense labeled fixtures, and conserve approximately 1.2 billion gallons of water a year. In addition, water savings also translate into energy savings, as less energy is required to move, treat, and heat water. The inclusion of these water-saving features can result in savings for KB home buyers on their utility costs as compared to typical existing homes that do not have the same features.
“Today, every KB home we build includes WaterSense labeled fixtures and other water-saving features,” said Dan Bridleman, senior vice president of Sustainability, Technology, and Strategic Sourcing for KB Home. “As an industry leader in sustainable home building, we focus our efforts on incorporating innovative features, systems and construction practices into our homes that reduce environmental impact with little or no additional costs. Our participation in the WaterSense program is a perfect illustration of how we advance this priority.”
