This Old House's Steve Thomas is up for an interview at the International Builders Show. In this video, Matt Risinger talks with Thomas, one of his long-standing childhood heroes. Risinger says he became a builder as a result of that show. Habitat is now in the top ten builders in the United States and at one point it was the sixth largest builder. That was during the recession. Not only is Habitat one of the largest builders, it is also one of the greenest. There isn't a house built within the program that is not conforming to a green standard. Some Habitat affiliates are doing passive houses because it's ethically unfair to put first-time homeowners in a house with high energy bills. Habitat is committed to building a really tight envelope—so energy is first and green workmanship is second. You can't look at indoor air from a building perspective and then use off-gassing materials. It is important to know where do the materials come from? Can you recycle them at the end of their useful life? How much damage are they doing to the planet in terms of harvesting, coring, mining, processing, transportation, etc. Then the house should be designed to be practical. Usually, smaller is greener. Habitat does well in all of these areas.