The U.S. Green Building Council has released its annual list of Top 10 States for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). The list ranks states based on the number of LEED-certified square feet per person. The Top 10 states for LEED are home to 128 million Americans and together include more than 468 million gross square feet of LEED-certified space.
As the No. 1 state for LEED certification in 2018, Illinois certified 172 green building projects representing 5.31 square feet of LEED-certified space per resident. This is the first time Illinois has taken the top spot since 2015. Washington and Texas also made triumphant returns to the Top 10 securing the highest rankings in each states’ history. In addition, Colorado made notable strides in its LEED activity moving from number 10 in 2017 to number six on this year’s list. The Top 10 list is based on 2010 U.S. Census data and includes commercial and institutional green building projects certified throughout 2018. For more details, visit usgbc.org. The full rankings are as follows:
*Included in 2017 Top 10 States for LEED list
**Washington, D.C. is not ranked as it is a federal district, not a state
USGBC calculates the list using per capita figures to allow for a fair comparison of the level of green building taking place among states with significant differences in population and number of overall buildings. Notable projects that certified in each state in 2018 include:
- Illinois: Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital is LEED Silver and part of a redeveloped campus that opened in March 2018 with over 700 physicians providing primary, specialty and emergency care
- Massachusetts: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. School, LEED Platinum, served as a prototype for the Cambridge Green Schools Initiative and changed the way the district thinks about building energy while also using its design as a teaching tool for students
- Washington: The LEED Platinum Seattle Fire Station 22 was designed to support the well-being of its firefighters while finding ways to reuse and conserve non-potable water to meet the station’s needs
- New York: Albany Damien Center Residences is a LEED Gold housing project that has provided over 400 chronically homeless people living with HIV and AIDS with long-term housing stability
- Texas: The LEED Silver Austin Animal Kennel expanded its facility to meet the city’s growing “No Kill” community and provides an additional 44 kennel spaces, as well as play yards and adoption rooms
- Colorado: Jones Hall at the Colorado School for the Deaf and Blind is a historic building that achieved LEED Gold and provides a place for visiting families to stay, as well as a repository of resources for students across the state
- Hawaii: Hawaii Convention Center achieved LEED Gold and is focused on measuring environmental performance to improve visitor experience and uses Arc to track its sustainability efforts
- Virginia: Operation Smile’s Global Headquarters used LEED to reflect its own commitment to make the world a better place during the construction of its new LEED Gold office in Virginia Beach
- California: The Jet Propulsion Laboratory achieved LEED Gold for Building 301 using LEED v4.1; LEED is used across JPL’s campus to compare progress and continuously improve building performance while also meeting federal guiding principles for sustainable buildings as a contractor to NASA
- Maryland: The Merriweather Post Pavilion Stagehouse is a LEED Silver home-away-from-home for touring artists playing at the iconic venue and reflects many of the artists environmental values
