USGBC releases updated LEED statistics

Commercial office projects LEED the way with more than 12,000 registered projects.

Mon, Dec 28 2009 at 9:00 AM EST

Photo: SqueakyMarmot/Flickr

The U.S. Green Building Council recently released updated statistics for its LEED green building program. Commercial office ventures are the most frequently registered LEED projects with 12,290 total projects registered or certified. Retail projects come in a very distant second place with 4,398 and higher education projects come in third with just more than 3,000 registered buildings.

The rest of the top 10 list looks like this: multi-unit residential (2,775), campus (2,406), military base (2,115), restaurant (2,069), industrial (1,660), community development (1,607), and K-12 education (1,600). Although commercial office space is registered nearly three times as frequently as second place retail projects, the other industries are seeing more registrations, and so the gap is closing.

In addition to tallying the type of projects that are LEED registered, the USGBC also keeps track of LEED registered projects by country. Naturally, the United States is the country with the most LEED certified or registered projects, but some of the other countries in the top 10 surprised me.

Arab Emirate – 656 registered projects
China – 261 registered projects
Canada – 228 registered projects
Brazil – 134 registered projects
Mexico – 111 registered projects
Germany – 99 registered projects
South Korea – 93 registered projects
India – 76 registered projects
Saudi Arabia – 65 registered projects
Italy – 64 registered projects

Although some of these countries have their own green building councils, many still look to the USGBC’s LEED program as the gold standard in green building rating systems. For example, the Green Building Council Brazil was founded in March 2007 to help foster the green building industry in the country.

Although Brazil’s Green Building Council is independent of the USGBC, both organizations are part of the World Green Building Council. Due to the success of the USGBC’s LEED Rating Systems, Brazil’s Green Building Council has adopted the LEED program. The two organizations are working together to interpret and adapt the program to certify green buildings in Brazil.

If you’re curious about LEED registered projects in your area, the USGBC maintains a searchable database of both LEED certified and registered projects. Projects seeking LEED certification aren’t required to register with the public database but many are still available.

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