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AXIS to be Deployed as NGBS Online Portal

Home Innovation Research Labs and Pivotal Energy Solutions have announced that Pivotal's AXIS software platform will be deployed as the online web portal supporting participation in and administration of the NGBS Green certification program as of September 7, 2021. 

After several years of regional success with AXIS in Arizona and the Pacific Northwest, this will be the first deployment of AXIS supporting a national program.  Pivotal has worked as a technical partner with Home Innovation Research Labs since 2016 to surface NGBS Green certifications within the AXIS database for use in analytics and markets utilizing green and energy efficiency certification data.  Most recently, Home Innovation and Pivotal have been pursuing opportunities to auto-populate NGBS Green certification data within real estate MLS platforms.

Bob Burns, president of Pivotal, said, "This is an exciting next step for Pivotal in working with Home Innovation to develop and support their online portal for the NGBS Green program.  We're thrilled to have this collaboration and to expand the use of AXIS to the national level." 

With the transition of the NGBS Green program to the AXIS platform, NGBS Green Verifiers and clients will be able to register projects, submit verification reports and compliance documentation, and monitor project status in real-time 24/7/365 from any modern internet web browser.  The volume of data available for downstream consumers will also be enhanced with the transition. 

Michelle Foster, Vice President of Sustainability for Home Innovation, added, "We are so excited to be working with Pivotal to streamline our NGBS Green certification process and provide even more value for our clients.  We're confident that over time NGBS Green Verifiers and clients will benefit from using the online portal and that it will enable Home Innovation to move the NGBS program forward in exciting new ways. We are also eager to provide greater transparency for the NGBS Green certification process which will benefit investors, financial institutions, government agencies, and the industry as a whole."

If you are interested in learning more about AXIS or the solutions that Pivotal offers, visit www.pivotalenergysolutions.com.

To learn more about the NGBS certification program, visit www.homeinnovation.com/services/certification/green_homes.

RESNET and Pivotal Energy Solutions Finalize Data Sharing Agreement for MLS Auto-Population

The Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET) and Pivotal Energy Solutions (Pivotal) announced today that a data sharing agreement has been finalized between the two organizations that enables residential certification data from the RESNET Building Registry to be incorporated into Pivotal’s AXIS cloud-based workflow and data management platform. Once aggregated into AXIS, the RESNET data can be used to enable auto-population of real estate listings offered through multiple listing service (MLS) systems throughout the United States.

Bob Burns, president of Pivotal, said, “As the interest in energy efficient housing continues to grow for both environmental and financial reasons, it’s important that the performance of homes is readily available for perspective home buyers. Enabling MLS software platforms to support green fields and making data available are important first steps, but long-term, auto-population of green and energy efficiency data directly into MLS listings is essential to ensure the accuracy and integrity of the data and limit the listing agent’s exposure to liability.” Beyond basic location information, the data included in the RESNET data feed will include the HERS Index Score, date of the rating, and modeled annual energy consumption. If the home has been certified as an ENERGY STAR or DOE Zero Energy Ready home, that information will also be available for auto-population into the MLS listing. RESNET joins a growing list of national and regional organizations sharing green and energy efficiency certification data with Pivotal. Burns added, “We’re excited to be working with RESNET to make their certification data more useful for real estate transactions. With the inclusion of RESNET’s data, AXIS can offer the richest set of certification and performance information in the industry. One day, we hope to reach a point where every home listed for sale will include some type of energy efficiency metric and/or utility cost information to help home buyers make more educated decisions when choosing their next home.”

If you are interested in Pivotal’s MLS auto-population solutions, or would simply like to learn more about AXIS, visit www.pivotalenergysolutions.com.

About RESNET
The Residential Energy Services Network (RESNET) is the independent, national nonprofit organization that homeowners trust to improve home energy efficiency and realize substantial savings on their utility bills. RESNET's industry-leading standards are recognized by the housing industry, federal, state, and local government agencies, among others. To date, over three million homes have been energy-rated and issued HERS Index Scores in the U.S. www.resnet.us.

Earth Advantage and Pivotal Energy Solutions Partner to Consolidate Aggregation and Distribution of Green Home Data

Earth Advantage and Pivotal Energy Solutions announced today a partnership to help deliver green and energy efficient homes data through Earth Advantage’s Green Building Registry® (GBR). Since 2017, the Green Building Registry has provided green home data, verified from the source, to the public and real estate multiple listing services. The DaaS platform provides verified data from sources such as green home certifications, RESNET HERS® Index scores, US DOE Home Energy Scores, and solar data. The data is made available through a publicly available website (us.greenbuildingregistry.com) or through a proprietary API connection with regional multiple listing services across the US.

Bob Burns, president of Pivotal, said, “We are thrilled to be working with Earth Advantage and the Green Building Registry team to share home certification data being aggregated within our AXIS platform with home-buyers, realtors, appraisers, and other downstream consumers through the GBR.” Pivotal’s AXIS product is used as a cloud-based program administration platform for residential new construction energy efficiency programs in the Pacific Northwest and other U.S. markets but also serves as an aggregator of green certification data for national programs such as National Green Building Standard (NGBS) and Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). “Partnering with Earth Advantage on the data distribution front allows Pivotal to focus on data aggregation and enables our respective organizations to best serve both providers of the data and consumers of the data by offering a single data aggregation and distribution channel. We feel that this consolidated approach will simplify the data sharing process and advance our mutual goal of proper valuation of green and energy efficient homes in the marketplace,” Burns added.

David Heslam, executive director at Earth Advantage stated, “Data drives the modern world. That's especially true for the real estate industry which provides the data for millions of home sales and mortgages every year. The Pivotal team has done a good job of making it simple for green programs to store their home data in the AXIS database. Our new partnership with Pivotal will make that 3rd-party verified green data easily available to MLS systems, agents, appraisers, and lenders through the Green Building Registry. The benefits of a one-stop-shop for green home data should be enormous."

The Green Building Registry was built and is maintained by the 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Earth Advantage, Inc. Earth Advantage’s mission is to accelerate the adoption of high performance and sustainable, residential building practices. We focus on two key pathways for success: maintaining well-above-code standards for our own certifications and providing information to the public in the form of data, and professional training. Visit: earthadvantage.org to learn more.

AXIS, Pivotal’s cloud-based data hub and workflow management solution, is specifically architected to serve the residential energy efficiency industry through aggregation of certified home data and streamlining the administration of and participation in residential new construction green and energy efficiency programs. To share your program data through AXIS, or to inquire about how AXIS might address your program needs, click here.

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