Sustainability is a guiding principle behind Palm Beach-based Kitson & Partners’ plan to create a new city at the historic Babcock Ranch, located between Charlotte and Lee counties. In 2006, the company bought a 91,000-acre ranch and sold 74,000 acres back to the state for preservation. Over the next 20 years, says CEO Syd Kitson, the company will utilize “green building practices and technologies and alternative transportation amid expansive greenways and blue ways and environmental planning” to forge a multi-generational, “eco-politan” community for 45,000 residents.

Another green builder, Harmony Development Company, is building an 11,000-acre “environmentally intelligent” community in Osceola County. One of Harmony’s construction principles requires its new homes to be Energy Star certified. Explains company Chairman Jim Lentz: “You can fully recapture the extra money spent for energy efficient appliances in six months through the savings on your electric bill. I scratch my head and wonder why others aren’t doing this.”

A decade ago, construction practices such as these lay far outside the mainstream of the building community. That’s changing. According to the 2006 Green Building SmartMarket Report by McGraw-Hill Construction, green building made up 2% of the nation’s non-residential construction; by 2010, that figure is expected to be between 5% and 10%.