US State & Municipal LEEDers Identified:- Who'd Have Thought?
by John Laumer, Philadelphia on 12. 8.07
This table of top metro-areas for LEED certification is excerpted from a recently published study that evaluated, on a national basis, the rent and value differentials of energy-efficient (LEED certified or "green") buildings. A few of the valuation factors in the report looked a little fuzzy, like the average savings associated with health and productivity improvements derived from green designs, for example. But, such cost factors were a minor distraction from the fascinating, geographic rank tables found in the report.
Have a look at which US states and municipalities have accumulated the most square feet in LEED-certified building space, as of the middle of 2007.
Talk about counter-intuitive. The State of Texas (#2 slot among states), and one of it's cities, Houston (#2 slot among cities), which share oil-permeated, SUV-driving reputations, are LEEDers?
The US capital of Washington DC has always had, and continues to live with, fossils taking campaign money from fossil fuel-reliant industries (regardless of which political party dominates). And...DC takes the number three slot among all US metro areas?
Roses landing on flies. Or hope burying dismay. Which is it?
Via::GreenerBuildings, "Does Green Pay Off?"
This would be more interesting if it were ranked by percentage of total government building square footage. All this says to me is "of those cities building green, these are the ones that happen to be large" - Seattle and Minneapolis look like the only two that are something to be proud of.
By the way, the Washington numbers are likely wrong - they show 16 for Seattle (which I believe is right), but only 17 for the whole state. The department of Ecology in Olympia is probably that one, but there are other LEED certified buildings the state has built that are apparently unlisted. It's unclear what the Seattle/Puget Sound number covers, but state government alone has ten certified - only a few of which are in the Greater Seattle area.
www.ofm.wa.gov/sustainability
'This would be more interesting if it were ranked by percentage of total government building square footage.'
---I agree.
Yay! Houston is #2.
Though, I really dislike's John's generalizing Houston as a "oil-permeated, SUV-driving " place.
Houston is an energy capital, and while oil is a major energy in Houston, other small green companies are starting to pop up as well.
And not everybody here drives an SUV. I see a lot of pick-ups and sedans. SUV's probably make up around 20% or less.
L.A. is the ones with SUV's.
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The current President probably won't recognize the place when he moves back!
FYI: it's worth a look at the original report. The top-most industry sectors owning LEED buildings in top ranked states are financial, legal, insurance, etc. Government sector is really rather small in comparison. Again, counter-intuitive. Really forces us to think about what drives the Green revolution.
I don't see much mystery in these figures: They follow population and wealth pretty closely.
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I can buy that as a possible explanation, especially in that the largest tenant sector is Financial.
A significant economic slowdown or 'depression' in 2008 that takes the wind out of the banking sails means we might look forward to a pretty drastic cutback in LEED construction.
'FYI: it's worth a look at the original report. The top-most industry sectors owning LEED buildings in top ranked states are financial, legal, insurance, etc. Government sector is really rather small in comparison. Again, counter-intuitive. Really forces us to think about what drives the Green revolution.'
---True. I should have modified the statement that I copied and pasted to clarify what I mean to agree with: 'This would be more interesting if it were ranked by percentage of total building square footage.' A big city can have only a very small percentage of total building space which is LEED certified yet come out on the top of a table which ranks according to absolute figures rather than relative figures even though a small city may have a much larger percentage of building space which is LEED certified (therefore indicating, in my opinion, greater efforts at adopting green building standards) and come much lower down in an absolute-figure based table. And I believe, based on my understanding of his text, that this is the point Ben was getting at.
Normalizing is always a good idea. When you do that you find that they don't follow population as Anonymous suggested.
Just looking at the top five state figures you find that Minnesota and Colorado stand out on the plus side and New York stands out on the negative side
Using estimates of current population from US Census, here are the top five states and the corresponding normalized figure of merit, (thousands of square feet)/(population in millions)
1. CA 1.43
2. TX 1.19
3. NY 0.65
4. MN 2.24
5. CO 2.38
The Gold goes to Colorado, the Silver to Minnesota, the Bronze to California and the Lead goes to New York
C'mon, those comments (from the writer) are ridiculous. DC's not a laggard - look at the number of buildings, not just square feet. Also - LA + Houston - what you would expect - cities that are rapidly growing. Of course you're not going to see a rapid change in # of LEED bldgs in cities w/ lower growth rates such as those in the Northeast.