How to Get Your Product Specified on Green Building Projects
By Cindy Wasser, MBA
Published Monday, November 3, 2025
If you’re a manufacturer looking to get specified on NGBS Green projects, you may have seen two different types of documents:
- a code evaluation report, and
- an NGBS Green product certification.
At first glance, they might look similar—but in practice, they do very different things. Code evaluation reports are needed to demonstrate code compliance for products and materials not explicitly covered by the building codes, but do not necessarily demonstrate performance features that set your product apart when it comes to high-performance building. If your goal is to make your product easier to specify on green projects, NGBS Green product certification delivers the visibility, trust, and promotional support you need.
Side-by-Side Snapshot
Certification Body & Audience
- NGBS Green Certification: Recognized pathway to product acceptance; audience includes builders, developers, architects, and consultants.
- Code Evaluation Report: Validates code compliance; audience is primarily code officials.
The NGBS Green product certificate is written for the person holding the NGBS checklist. Certification helps builders, verifiers, and designers trust, understand, and choose your product—fast.
Report Format & Additional Information
- NGBS Green Certification: Simple, scannable certificate showing alignment with associated NGBS practices, as well as NGBS Green+ and GRESB.
- Code Evaluation Report: Long, text-heavy documents not designed for alignment with specific NGBS practices or high-performance building goals.
In contrast to code evaluation reports, certification delivers a faster path to spec. Builders and verifiers are actively seeking products that will help them build better homes that will move through the certification process efficiently. When documentation is easy to understand, your product gets chosen faster.
Marketing Resources & Promotion
- NGBS Green Certification: Comes with certification marks, searchable catalogs, ready-to-use collateral, and regular spotlights across newsletters, social, trainings, and events.
- Code Evaluation Report: Does not include any promotional component.
Certification provides visibility that moves product. The catalog of certified products is the first stop for builders and verifiers specifying products for use in their projects. Certification comes with built-in discovery, training features, and ongoing promotion.
What Manufacturers Really Need
In order to stand out in the marketplace, manufacturers don’t just need compliance paperwork. They need three things to move product into high-performance buildings:
- Acceptance on NGBS Green projects
- Built-in visibility and promotion
- Project-side insights and credibility
That’s what NGBS Green certification delivers.
Proof Point: 700,000+ Homes & Apartments
Home Innovation has certified over 700,000 homes and apartments under NGBS Green. That means daily interaction with builders and verifiers, plus continuous insight into trends, compliance pitfalls, and best practices. We bring that knowledge back to manufacturers—helping reduce risk and accelerate acceptance.
Why It Moves Product
When green builders and verifiers spend less time deciphering documents and more time seeing your product spotlighted in trusted channels, it’s easier for them to choose you over competitors. That’s the marketing and project-side edge certification provides.
Getting Your Product Certified
Any product that contributes toward points under the NGBS is eligible for certification—from tried-and-true building materials, such as structural lumber and stone, to more emerging solutions, like smart thermostats and energy and water management systems.
To earn the NGBS Green Certified mark for their product(s) manufacturers must provide appropriate third-party evidence to Home Innovation Research Labs that their products meet the applicable NGBSspecified criteria in a given practice(s) for a building, to garner points toward NGBS Green Certification.
Want the faster path to specification? Talk to an NGBS Green expert today.