LEED for Who?

At work in the past week or two, I've been doing a bit of research on LEED for Homes here in the Philadelphia region. I got a complete listing of the homes that have been certified in the US, and realized how pitiful it really is in some areas, especially Pennsylvania.
The non-profit that I work for, the Pennsylvania Environmental Council, is home to the people that are trying to get sustainable practices going in Philadelphia and the state. They have commissioned a Green Infrastructure Report, to help the City government learn how to pay for green streets, parks and other sustainable municipal projects. They are the advocates for the East Coast Greenway in Pennsylvania. But sometimes it really seems that they are the only ones that are doing anything about anything. Mayor Nutter said that he wants to make Philadelphia the "Greenest City in America". They have submitted a plan called Greenworks, which is ambitious in its ideas of what the City wants to accomplish. I think the idea and effort are admirable, but I can't help but wonder how this change is really going to occur.
Part of the research that I'm doing is evaluating how LEED for Homes has been used in Philadelphia and other cities, as well as what incentives and bonuses are given to encourage or require people to build with LEED or other green measures on a residential and commercial/industrial basis. The results are quite a mixture: some cities have succeeded in creating a program that encourages and nurtures green building, such as Chicago, IL and Portland, OR. The main problem with regulation to date is that local governments can really only be responsible for the buildings that they design themselves, and buildings that they have somewhat of a say in (i.e. buildings by developers that have to get permits). And the result is that the only regulation that is left for the residential sector is incentives.
LEED for Homes is one of the most popular and widely-known of these incentives. But obtaining LEED certification is a costly process, not only in fulfilling the requirements, but also in paying for the registration and for people to help you finish the processing (providers). Because of the cost of LEED, and the up-front cost of measures that increase the sustainability of a home, most people do not have the investment capitol to put into such a project. Another weakness of LEED is that it is mainly geared towards new homes or fully-renovated homes, leaving out the people that want to do smaller sustainable projects.
In Pennsylvania, there are grant programs that help to pay for these small things, but the homeowner still has to go out of their way to apply and get financing to do these projects, and for what gain? They might save a bit in energy costs, but how would they even know? They would have to strictly monitor their consumption to even see a difference. Most people don't have the motivation for that.
I think the point that I'm trying to make here is that most homeowners, at least in Philadelphia, do not have much incentive to try and green their current homes, or to build new green homes. From what I've seen, most LEED for Homes certifications in the Philly area have been by developers, who can then use the LEED sticker as a marketing tool when they sell their properties. Not to say this is a bad idea, but how else can we encourage people to make their homes more sustainable?
This is a question that environmental organizations struggle with all the time. Some try implementing programs that help to finance, such as TIFs (Tax Increment Financing), and help people to pay for green projects in their areas. Some people change the zoning code (an idea Philly and PEC are trying to pursue) to encourage larger-scale buildings to build LEED and green. One solution is giving tax credits to homes that have made green renovations, but this can be a thorny issue, and incentives for the residential sector are much harder to create.
The point is that making it desirable for people to build green homes is difficult. Right now, people are only building green if they see that there is something in it for them: tax abatement, bonuses, a certificate that says you have a green home. The root of the problem is that people need to understand that they don't need these incentives to build a green home, because the home is an incentive on its own. Building a home that saves energy and materials, promotes natural light and good air quality, and saves the owner money in the long-run is something that everyone should want. But right now, no one grasps this concept, and one thing that Americans are quite good at is deferment of responsibility. As with many other issues in out country, if our citizens were better educated on the issues, they would be able to act upon them. Most people don't know about solar panels or water-saving faucets, better insulation or double-paned windows. Before we can expect people to change their behavior, we have to educate them on how, and more importantly, why they should. People will see that it is not only their responsibility to themselves and their environment to build better homes, but that there are a lot of advantages to doing so.
Hopefully one day, after we can figure out a way to tell the average joe about sustainable building practices, people won't need a checklist and a sticker to get them to build an environmentally friendly house.