Whether you are building a new energy efficient home or remodeling you current home to be more energy efficient you need to consider and plan the project to ensure that the results are what you intended. During this process you probably will have to pull in some specialists for certain of the strategies.

These are some guidelines for sustainable living when you design your home building / rebuilding project

1. Design and build for durability

Make sure that the design, the materials, and the construction combine in such a way that the project
can withstand all the factors that can affect it. These include rain, wind, the sun's ultraviolet radiation, pests, general use and natural disasters.

At the same time you want to design a project that is attractive and user-friendly.

2. Evaluate for optimum energy performance

Do a comprehensive energy analysis of all areas of energy performance - moisture and air flows, comfort levels,air quality safety and durability. This ensures that your energy improvements do not result in unintended and negative results. It also
ensures that the improvements cosider all energy loads - heating, cooling, ventilation of the air, water heating, appliances and plug loads as well as the climate and other site factors.

3. Design for optimum energy performance

Computer modeling is probably the best way to determine how design elements affect the energy efficiency of your project. By determining how all elements of the home interact, energy models allow you to determine the overall efficiency of the home, predict energy bills, and even see how energy-efficient your home is compared with code.

4. Manage the noise levels of the new home

Reducing the impact of noise in your home reduces the risks of impaired hearing as well as problems such as elevated blood pressure and heart rate, cardiovascular constriction, sleep loss, depressed learning rates, and the production of stress hormones, all of which are now, at least partially, being attributed to noise.

5. Design for a better air quality

Indoor air quality should be taken into account during the design phase of just about all remodeling and interior design projects: ventilation, materials selection, filtration, etc.

6. Design for a sustainable lifestyle

Specific measures can include incorporating recycling receptacles, providing convenient storage for bicycles, providing storage for locally produced food, providing composting receptacles in the kitchen and a sturdy composting bin outdoors; and storage spaces that will encourage organization while discouraging the accumulation of belongings that are never used.

7. Use a universal design

The relationship between universal and sustainable design is a strong one. Remodeling to maintain a home’s functionality as the owners age or as owners change is resource efficient.

8. Optimize the layout of the home's interior

Whenever a remodeling project involves potential redsign of interior spaces, consider how the layout could be modified to better utilize space (including storage), benefit from passive solar heating, more effectively circulate conditioned air (in some cases obviating the need for distributed heat), and reduce the length of hot-water piping runs.

9. Design a sheltered entryway

Providing a sheltered entry to a home can reduce heat loss and gain, provide protection from UV and water exposure, and provide a place to leave wet shoes and outerwear. There should also be adequate space for hanging coats and storing outdoor shoes.

10. Design for adequate storage space

Maximizing all opportunities for storage means less square footage. In small bathrooms in particular, design additional storage by framing in interior wall cavities for medicine cabinets and small shelves.

11. Provide for a pantry

A pantry that is accessible from the kitchen can provide space-efficient and cost-effective storage space for food and kitchen utensils. Effective implementation of a pantry can reduce the number of cabinets needed, and because doors are not needed on each shelf inside a pantry, overall material use and construction cost can be reduced.

12. Design a practical and usable kitchen

Ideally, a kitchen recycling center includes stations or bins for paper, plastic, metal, and compost. It can also make an in-sink garbage disposal unnecessary. The space for a kitchen recycling center can be incorporated into the new cabinet layout or into pantry, mudroom, or other adjacent space. Instead of a trash compactor, a dedicated recycling center in the kitchen or utility room will help homeowners practice environmentally responsible lifestyles.

Ebooks like Home Made Power Plant shows you how to install energy replacement devices at a relatively low cost and without any major remodeling while online bookstores like Amazon have a number of books on Green building, remodeling and energy savings available.

Source: NAHB’s Voluntary Model Green Home Building Guidelines