D.C. Tops LEED Certification List for Second Year

by | Jan 20, 2012

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Colorado and Illinois have pushed out New Mexico and Nevada in the U.S. Green Building Council’s annual ranking of states by certified LEED space per capita, while Washington, D.C. continues to leave all states behind in its wake.

The capital city had 18.9 million square feet earn LEED certification in 2011, or 31.5 square feet per person – miles ahead of Colorado at 2.74 and Illinois at 2.69.

Of course, the District has a few unfair advantages over its competitors. Being a city rather than a state, it has a comparatively high density of buildings, and a high proportion of those buildings belong to the federal government, which has pushed its agencies to adopt green building practices. D.C. also has only about 600,000 residents.

Washington, D.C. also came first in last year’s rankings, when it was followed by Nevada, New Mexico and New Hampshire. But those states are nowhere to be found in this year’s top 11.

The top states this year were:

Sq. ft. of space earning LEED certification in 2011

Per capita

District of Columbia

18,954,022

31.50

Colorado

13,803,113

2.74

Illinois

34,567,585

2.69

Virginia

19,358,193

2.42

Washington

14,667,558

2.18

Maryland

11,970,869

2.07

Massachusetts

13,087,625

2.00

Texas

50,001,476

1.99

California

71,551,296

1.92

New York

36,538,981

1.89

Minnesota

9,591,445

1.81

A chart of the results is available here.

And some of the notable newly certified projects in 2011, from each state:

  • Treasury Building in Washington, D.C., the oldest LEED-certified project in the world (pictured)
  • The LEED-Platinum Casey Middle School in Boulder, Colo.
  • The iconic Wrigley Building in Chicago, Ill.
  • Frito-Lay in Lynchburg, Va., which earned LEED Gold for the operations and maintenance of an existing building
  • The LEED Silver Hard Rock Café in Seattle, Wash.
  • Anne Arundel Medical Center in Annapolis, Md.
  • Yawkey Distribution Center of The Greater Boston Food Bank in Massachusetts
  • The LEED Gold Austin Convention Center in Texas
  • SFO’s LEED Gold Terminal 2 in San Francisco, Calif.
  • The LEED-Platinum Hotel Skylar in Syracuse, N.Y.
  • The LEED Platinum Marquette Plaza in Minneapolis, Minn.

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