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Using recycled carpeting or a highly insulated building envelope for a home may lead to reduced greenhouse gas emissions, but a greater impact can be made by simply constructing a smaller home, according to by Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality.

The state agency analyzed 30 strategies for reducing use and increasing reuse of materials. Downsizing from a 3,000-square-foot home to a 1,500-square-foot home, for example, would reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted over the life of a home by 36 percent.

The fact that a smaller home has less environmental impact isn’t surprising, according to Jordan Palmeri, waste prevention specialist with Oregon’s DEQ. Less square footage means fewer materials are used and less energy is needed to heat and cool a smaller space.

What impressed Palmeri the most about the study’s results was the amount of greenhouse gas emissions that could be avoided by downsizing from an average-size home with 2,262 square feet to one with 1,149 square feet. The study used data from Earth Advantage’s residential energy efficiency programs.

“As a state we’re good at recycling, but reduction and reuse have larger benefits (related to lowering greenhouse gas emissions),” Palmeri said. “The avoided material production and benefit of reduced heating and electric loads for smaller homes are telling. I don’t think policies will ever say you can’t build a certain size house, but the larger the house is, the more energy efficient it needs to be.”

In Portland, developers like Eli Spevak of Orange Splot LLC have embraced the small house movement. The largest home Spevak has developed was 1,400 square feet, and he said there is demand for smaller homes in urban areas like Portland. Spevak assisted with the DEQ’s study.

“We’ve been living in this binge society with these big homes because of easy home financing,” Spevak said. “We don’t consider how much space people actually need. My wife, baby and I live in a 670-square-foot home. For environmental and other reasons, it makes sense to reduce the size of a home.”

Mainstream home builders also are building smaller homes, according to Byron Van Kley, president of Adair Homes. Many children of baby boomers are looking to downsize from their family-size homes to smaller ones, Van Kley said. In addition, first-time home buyers are seeking smaller, cheaper homes. Adair offers a 997-square-foot home and a 783-square-foot accessory dwelling unit.

“With the current codes for building energy use, you have to build an extremely efficient house,” Van Kley said. “It’s difficult to imagine getting much more efficient, so houses will get smaller. With the questions surrounding energy use and land-use rules getting more restrictive, it will create a situation where houses are getting smaller anyway. Regulation isn’t needed to make that happen.”

While there is some demand for smaller homes from empty nesters, couples and single people, Jim Chapman, vice president of Legend Homes, said others will need to be convinced of the advantages to living in houses smaller than 1,200 square feet.

The largest barrier to popularizing small homes is cost, Chapman said. Homes are priced per square foot, and the most expensive rooms in a house are the bathroom and kitchen. Even if a home has less square footage, the land it sits on isn’t cheaper and the kitchen and bathroom expenses drive up the cost per square foot, Chapman said.

“I’m hoping all of us downsize over time,” Chapman said. “But right now it’s hard to find people even in a position to buy a home. And people in a position to buy a home don’t tend to look at energy efficiency as much as they should. Some people will spend more for a smaller house, but the smaller it is, the more it costs.”

The results of the DEQ study are being presented to state agencies, cities and counties to help inform future policy makers about greenhouse gases, Palmeri said.