WASHINGTON, DC-The total footprint of commercial real estate certified under USGBC’s LEED green building program has now exceeded two billion square feet, the council reveals. In addition, there is seven billion square feet in the pipeline around the globe. This translates into $554 billion annually into the economy, says Rick Fedrizzi, president, CEO and founding chair of USGBC, in a prepared statement. It has also "helped support 7.9 million jobs across the US."
Another way to visualize this data: LEED certifies two million square feet of commercial building space each day in more than 130 countries. Also, there are nearly 50,000 commercial projects currently participating in LEED, comprising nine billion square feet of construction. Since the beginning of July, more than 300 projects have earned the certification in more than 20 countries worldwide.
While LEED is the most popular green building initiative, it is not the only one. Earlier this year, as one example, the American High-Performance Buildings Coalition was launched by the American Chemistry Council and other organizations. However the playing field favors USGBC for a variety of reasons, starting with momentum—it was among the first to carry the banner for sustainable development standards. Many state and local government incentives, or new zoning laws, favor LEED for that reason. Certainly the federal government has made a point of leasing space only in LEED certified buildings, with the bar set at Silver and preference given to Gold or Platinum.
For that reason perhaps, the District of Columbia leads the states--although technically DC is not a state--in terms of LEED certification. According to USGBC figures, in 2011 it had more than 31 square feet of LEED-certified space per person, followed by Colorado, with 2.74 feet. Illinois, Virginia and Washington, clocked in at 2.69, 2.42 and 2.18 square feet, respectively. The complete USGBC list of top 10 states, in order, is: District of Columbia, Colorado, Illinois, Virginia, Washington, Maryland, Massachusetts, Texas, California and New York.
© Touchpoint Markets, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more inforrmation visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
Erika Morphy
Erika Morphy has been writing about commercial real estate at GlobeSt.com for more than ten years, covering the capital markets, the Mid-Atlantic region and national topics. She's a nerd so favorite examples of the former include accounting standards, Basel III and what Congress is brewing.
