It feels different here. We're at the office, talking shop. Moving past the acoustic guitar and AC/DC record (yes, record), you get a sense that these guys and gals are doing something cool and modern—so modern, in fact, that the industry has yet to catch up. It makes sense that there's a guitar in the office because this team strums to the tune of their own chords, setting new standards in homebuilding and daring anyone to do the same. Welcome to Green Canopy Homes.

BEATRICE (THEY NAME THEIR HOMES)

We're on the roof of "Beatrice" now, overlooking Lake Washington and Bellevue on one side, with a clear shot of the Smith Tower in Seattle on the other. But enough about the view—we're standing on top of building science. The guts of this home will soon be filled with enough gadgetry to wow even the most ardent tech geek, delivering cleaner air, more efficient heating, and an overall sense of innovative superiority.

Driven by the Built Green® checklists, along with meticulous Quality Control Inspection Checklists (QCIC) of their own, every Green Canopy job site is synchronized via iPads that deliver real-time project management tracking and communication. This process ensures that critical updates are made and that any mistakes don't happen twice. It's all about getting better here, from process to parts. Better homes lead to a better brand, which in turn provides validation for that tree logo on the front of each Green Canopy-certified home.

"That tree logo," by the way, is there for much more than feng shui. Turning residential homebuilding innovation into an industry strength is made possible by Value, Innovation, Beauty, and Efficiency, or VIBE, the way Green Canopy sees it. Their brand is secured—not grounded—by these four "roots," seen literally on the face of each home, welcoming owners and guests into the future of home living. And if a home doesn't meet the rigorous checklists, then it doesn't receive the logo. In other words, this brand delivers.

THE GENESIS OF BETTER BUILDING

Let's take a step back to a sleep-deprived evening in 2008. Owners Aaron Fairchild and Sam Lai had both recently welcomed their newborns, and through their giddiness came the idea for Green Canopy Homes. After trademarking their moniker, they went to work on answering a simple question: Are we making a difference? Heady question, but these guys wouldn't have it any other way. They're looking to create history.

Of course, history is defined by change and nobody knows that better than this crew. They don't throw history out, however; in fact, they embrace it in all its past beauty. Case in point; each project they take on comes with the name of an iconic and typically historical female figure. "Beatrice" is named after Beatrice Simms, founder of Seattle's chapter of Colored Women's Clubs. Each project's story continues long after the team leaves, too, as Lai envisions his future homeowners living, laughing, and growing up healthier and happier inside their Green Canopy home.

After a familial chat with the project managers, in conversation outside of Beatrice, Lai finishes his point on home efficiency by comparing vehicle MPGs to home efficiency ratings. "Hopefully my kids will think about their home MPGs in the same way (as their vehicles')," he says, almost as an afterthought. "I guarantee you they will," quips Fairchild, never one to miss a beat. The attention to detail is strong.

Those who know Aaron Fairchild may know his father, who knew everyone. Aaron worked at his father's bank from 1995 to 2008, refining his financing skills and using his area residential homebuilding experience to put investors in a place where they could succeed and do so without sacrificing values. One day, at the height of the financial crisis, Fairchild decided it was time to enter the real estate industry. Why? Human reasoning can be a tricky thing to grasp, but a simple analogy sums up his thought process: this was his chance to build something beautiful from the crash.

CHANGE WAS COMING

Of course, cultivating said change means planting the right seeds in the right place. In this case, it means building sustainability in the cultural center of the Northwest, the greater Seattle and Portland areas. Green Canopy has sprouted roots in some of the most visible and dense areas of the Puget Sound region, spanning a diverse price range. Built Green-certified homes, like the ones Green Canopy specializes in, now make up 57 percent of all residential homes built in the soil-rich Seattle area. The roots of change are spreading—must be all the rain.

BACK TO THE FUTURE

At the Earth 6 property in Delridge, consisting of six detached single-family units, Fairchild fervently points out features, describing the living area as "Volkswagen luxury," inside the well-sealed envelope construction of the home. Green Canopy projects that go on the market in the low $400,000 range, such as the Earth 6 units, contain features not typically found at that price, and both Fairchild and Lai are quick to point out that they have had help in being able to spread the technology around. In steps the Washington State Housing Finance Commission (WSHFC), without whom, Green Canopy would not have been able to build the Earth 6 homes the way they wanted to. The WSHFC has helped builders like Green Canopy deliver deep energy efficiency to homes of all shapes and sizes, allowing lower-end residences to experience the joy of high efficiency ERVs, eco panels, and 230 percent more efficient heat pumps creating compressed energy with the intensity of "high schoolers on the dance floor" (another Fairchild classic), just like they do inside million-dollar homes. In WSHFC, Green Canopy sees a like-minded ally, not afraid to think outside the box and take measurable risks to achieve their mission. In their own words, green innovation within the building industry typically "hasn't been a strength," though Fairchild and friends are working on that.

It helps, too, that everyone on the team actually talks the talk when it comes to living green. Lai literally lives and breathes his product, living in a home he collaboratively designed and built himself. Hanging around the crew, especially Lai and Fairchild, it becomes immediately apparent that they really do mean it when they say they want to change the residential homebuilding industry—whether everyone likes it or not.

Cue the chatter of neighbors opposed to modern "monstrosities" being erected in their neck of the woods. Fairchild combats allied neighborhood fronts by simply sitting residents down and talking to them like the people they are, and giving them some say in what they have to look at every day. The loudest typically direct the majority at these gatherings, Fairchild points out, so Green Canopy gives individuals the option to go online and fill out a survey on features like exterior color and roofline shape, which will then influence the design direction Green Canopy takes. The home is then built according to plan—with slight alternations to paint and slope.

When asked whether or not this is enough to satisfy opposed residents, Fairchild counters the clash with reason: "We hold meetings for existing residents even before buying the property, to talk with them and see if building there (in a particular neighborhood) would be a good fit in the first place. If we think it is not right for us, we explain that another builder will eventually buy this land, and they probably won't engage the community at all."

Fairchild also discusses obstacles within the rebuilding process, explaining why he and Green Canopy have moved away from full-gut remodel projects: Persistent frustrations with an elongated plans review process of remodel permits have in the past delayed projects to the point where they "just aren't worth the trouble," he says. Ever the mender, however, he has recently taken a seat on the MBA board, where he hopes to further influence political decision-makers in our region. By engaging the public and manning the front lines of influential industry committees to squash issues before they become problematic, Green Canopy is winning before nail one is hammered.

Inevitably, when one tours a Green Canopy home, the question arises: "Can you do this for us?" With a few more of those questions answered, things won't feel so different anymore.

Cue the guitar.

By MBAKS Content Strategist James Slone

Reducing greenhouse emissions means housing more people in healthier, more energy-efficient homes in cities near jobs, amenities, and transit. Unfortunately, a lack of affordable options has priced residents out of booming cities like Seattle and into sprawling suburbs with long, carbonintensive commutes.

A new generation of homebuilders understands that the lack of affordable housing and climate change are related problems requiring interlinked solutions. One of the leading lights in this new way of thinking and acting is Green Canopy NODE.

Where housing is located and who can afford it matters as much as how it’s built—a realization Green Canopy NODE intuitively grasps. For them, solving the housing problem at scale means creating a new paradigm where green housing is accessible to people of all income levels. It sounds easy, but it’s complicated.

Green at Scale

Green Canopy NODE brought together Seattle-based carbonmitigating construction firm NODE with Green Canopy, a green development and construction company based in Seattle and Portland with a long history helping lead the net zero revolution.

In a 2021 press release announcing their merger, Green Canopy NODE Co-CEO Bec Chapin said that the company’s aim was “an evolution of the industry to build more houses faster that create greater health, wellbeing, and resiliency for people and communities now and in the future.”

For Aaron Fairchild, Green Canopy NODE co-CEO, it’s as much a moral question as a practical one.

“As humanity continues to grapple with the need to house more people, our communities and planet feel the strain. We’re trying to lessen the strain and offer more regenerative solutions that help build communities while prolonging the life of the resources required to do so.”

For Green Canopy NODE, transforming the homebuilding industry requires a multifaceted approach: building more housing where it’s needed, offering a full suite of development services to other housing providers, prefabricating building components offsite, and deploying an impact investment fund for projects.

Build, Build, Build

Green Canopy and NODE’s coming together allowed them to pool their respective experience in green development and technological innovation to scale up construction, leading to their multifaceted approach. I recently chatted with Fairchild to find out more about each aspect of their overall work.

Obviously, the first is building housing, lots of it.

Green Canopy NODE builds rowhouses, townhomes, and multifamily units because they’re a more affordable option for families who want to live in high-quality neighborhoods with jobs and amenities. They are experts in the “missing middle” with the real estate chops to secure land for infill development.

Not an easy ask in a city where land value is through the roof.

“It’s hard to build affordable housing in urban areas where housing is needed most,” Fairchild explains. “It requires greater subsidies and a more flexible approach. As time goes on, private, nonprofit, and public partnerships will become the norm.”

It’s not enough to just build them. They also have to be green.

“Nearly 100 percent of our homes are Built Green or Earth Advantage Certified,” says Fairchild. “At Green Canopy, we historically focused on energy efficiency. We’ve always built all-electric homes and have completed several net zero homes,” or homes that produce more energy than they take from the grid.

Building green homes not only helps the environment; it also makes housing a more affordable proposition. “Because we build homes that perform well beyond code, utility costs are lower, and residents save money.” Remarkably, the company is able to deliver net-zero-ready homes to the market at the same price as code-built.

But decarbonization is no longer just about saving energy. Green Canopy NODE has recently started focusing on carbon emitted from the production of their building materials, what’s known as embodied carbon. Making sure embodied carbon doesn’t outweigh a home’s performance is the next frontier in green building.

Promoting Innovation

Perhaps the most essential element of lowering green construction costs is using new technologies to increase productivity, including standardizing building components, modernizing the workforce by training them in the latest in construction methods, and manufacturing pre-fab building components.

For Fairchild, manufacturing is especially important. “To scale up and lower costs, the industry will need to embrace the power of off-site manufacturing more and more. It is the only known pathway to the sort of efficiencies required to build more sustainable, higherquality, lower-cost housing.”

By manufacturing offsite in the controlled environment of a factory and quickly assembling components onsite, Green Canopy NODE avoids inefficiencies. The company is investing heavily in pre-fabricated solutions that can be moved directly from manufacturing facilities to project sites.

They’re especially excited about fabricating cross-laminated timber (CLT)—an engineered wood product made from wood stacked and glued together at 90-degree angles—for residential mid-to-low rise construction.

CLT is easy to carve and groove with computer-controlled cutting machines, making it uniform and easy to install. The best part? “Along with being a beautiful and exceptionally strong building material,” Fairchild enthuses, “CLT also sequesters carbon and can be reused at the end of a building’s life."

Spreading the Love: Development Services and Impact Investment

To deliver the high volume of housing needed to have a substantial impact, Green Canopy NODE also needs to be able to employ their strategies on an expansive multi-project scale. The best way to do that is by extending a helping hand to other builders and nonprofit housing providers.

Their real estate development services have helped complete hundreds of homes reliably and cost-effectively. Current projectpartners include Sunnyside Village Co-Housing, Habitat for Humanity, Africatown Community Land Trust, Homestead Community Land Trust, and Grow Bainbridge.

Their services cover all aspects of homebuilding, including acquisition, finance, estimating and feasibility, architecture, construction, and warranty services. The key to their services’ effectiveness, says Fairchild, is that they’re vertically integrated.

“Vertical integration means our team can work with you at any stage of the development process, avoiding the headache of external bottlenecks.” It lowers the cost of developing housing projects because it cuts construction costs by consolidating different stages like R&D and procurement.

The result is a high degree of flexibility and control. “We’re able to rapidly respond to requests, enhancing our ability to collaborate.” And because the company manages real estate funds, they can drive housing demand in a way that’s “aligned with our sustainability and technology goals.”

The company created an impact investment fund management firm, Green Canopy NODE Capital, to invest in infill building projects in Seattle and Portland.

Currently, Green Canopy NODE offers both investment and fund management for more than 90 shareholders and over 45 limited partners. Over the last decade, the company has leveraged their building expertise and knowledge of the housing market to raise and manage over $70 million in accredited investor capital.

Heart and Soul

Green Canopy NODE has already tallied an enviable list of accomplishments. As of this writing, they have built more than 300 Built Green and Earth Advantage Certified homes in and around Seattle and Portland, mitigated 33,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas, and steered investment to six major infill projects. And they’re just getting started.

This success isn’t just an outcome of their business acumen. It’s driven by a housing philosophy. Housing is the “nexus of our lives,” their website declares, “providing shelter, safety, and security,” a place “where one can develop a sense of love, belonging, acceptance with friends and family.”

Housing is also a solution to sprawl, homelessness, and climate change. Its importance goes far beyond profitability. It may seem idealistic, but the company genuinely believes that a change in paradigm requires a change in thinking. Fairchild says that a sense of mission permeates their company culture.

The Green Canopy NODE team, he says, shares a sense of purpose, and “a desire to regenerate communities and environments.” When they take on new team members and partners, they “look for people from communities seeking greater empowerment and renewal.”

Of course, technology, experience, and expertise are crucial to carrying out the day-to-day work. But it’s their focus on community that may be the key to unlocking the new homebuilding paradigm. It’s the heart and soul of Green Canopy NODE.

 

Article photos courtesy of Green Canopy NODE

Contact: data@mbaks.com

In July 2024, Washington’s unemployment rate stood at 4.9%, with the Seattle/Bellevue/Everett area slightly lower at 4.4%. The construction sector faced a significant downturn, losing 14,100 jobs over the past year, bringing total statewide construction employment to 227,400. This decline highlights ongoing challenges in the industry despite overall employment stability.

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