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gook.”“The EPS is something that an auditor can share withthe homeowner and the contractor,” says Penrith.“The consumer gets a scorecard that shows wherethey are and where they can get their home to. Itgenerates a recommendation report and turns it intoa scope of work for contractors to provide. It reallydistills that information down, like a weight-lossprogram.”Will it change the market?Peter Sundberg is executive director of City GreenSolutions, a non-profit that does home energy auditsand other consulting work in green building with officesin Victoria and Vancouver. Knowing the energyuse of one home in comparison with another, he says,is valuable to buyers -- especially any considering afixer-upper -- but information that is currently missingfrom the marketplace.While some major builders like JB Homes, one ofthe largest home building companies in the U.S.,have picked up on energy labeling as a way to get anedge in a market full of lower-priced foreclosures, itremains to be seen whether new and improved homeenergy labels will gain real traction in the housingmarket.Greenworks Realty and Development Group, aSeattle-based realtor specializing in green home sales,studied whether positive green ratings boost a property’svalue -- and found mixed results. Greenworksmined data from the Northwest Multiple Listing Service,which allows users to search for homes certifiedunder various rating systems including Built Green,Energy Star and LEED. Its 2010 report found that certifiedhomes in Seattle sold faster, and for 8.5 per centmore per square foot than non-certified homes. Outsidethe city, the opposite was true: certified homestook longer to sell and fetched lower prices.In an interview with the Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce,GreenWorks owner Ben Kauffman chalked thedifference up to education. In places where agents andbuyers are taught about green building, they’re morelikely to put a value on it.Anecdotal evidence, at least, suggests the same may84