(Credit: USGBC - Zervas Elementary School, Newton, MA)Massachusetts topped the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) ranking of U.S. states leading the way on green building, with Illinois coming in second and New York third. The LEED rating system is a widely used green building program and was created by USGBC as a leadership standard defining best practices for healthy, high-performing green buildings. In order to be ranked, a state must have at least two LEED-certified buildings.
LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification is a scoring system based on sustainability principles and gives projects points based on their site's energy and water efficiency, materials and resources used, atmosphere, and indoor environmental quality. Projects may be awarded LEED certification at the Silver, Gold, or Platinum levels.
“It was a strong year for LEED certifications across the U.S. as companies and governments embrace LEED as a tool for meeting ESG goals and organizational commitments to climate action, occupant wellbeing, and resource efficiency,” said Peter Templeton, USGBC president, and CEO. “LEED buildings are environmentally friendly, cutting their emissions and waste, and use less energy and water. At the same time, they also help reduce operational and maintenance costs, contributing to the bottom line.”
In 2022, over 26 million square feet of buildings were LEED-certified in Massachusetts. This represents nearly 3.7 LEED-certified square feet per capita, the highest per capita rate for any other state in the country. Illinois and New York were second and third on the list respectively with 3.47 and 3.17 square feet per capita.
Washington D.C., the nation's capital, consistently leads the country in LEED-certified square footage per capita. In 2022, it certified over 46 square feet of space per resident across 115 green building projects. As a federal territory, Washington D.C. does not appear in the official top 10 list of states but has committed itself to green building practices that align with those of its larger neighbors: Maryland and Virginia.
In 2006, the D.C. mayor's office passed the Green Building Act, which required green building certification for certain private and public buildings. The District of Columbia is taking a leadership role in reducing energy use and emissions, with a goal of carbon neutrality by 2050. In 2020, the District of Columbia began to adopt high-performance building codes with a focus on energy conservation and carbon neutrality, pushing LEED Zero for all commercial and residential construction.
Since it was first established in 2000, LEED's metrics-based system has set the standard for healthy, resilient, and green buildings. In 2022 USGBC surpassed 100,000 LEED-certified projects globally, totaling more than 11 billion certified gross square feet - making it the world's most widely used tool for evaluating building sustainability metrics.
