Dive summary:

• The International Code Council will take a look next month at a proposed energy building code that would allow builders to look at overall home efficiency rather than only individual aspects and that the Natural Resources Defense Council says has the backing of 20 U.S. home builders.
• NRDC says the code would make homes 20% more energy efficient by 2015 if the ICC adopted it and state and local governments followed suit, and it says home buyers would have a uniform standard by which to factor energy costs into the overall cost of a house.
• The code would allow builders to trade off one efficiency improvement for another that would be more expensive for a given house rather than having to rigidly meet individual standards for insulation,duct leakage, window thermal properties and the like.

From the article:

Leading Builders of America, an organization representing builders responsible for 40 percent of the new single family home market, and about 90 small builders and other industry groups, are fully behind the proposed code upgrade. ...