Image courtesy U.S. Green Building Council
In the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC’s) ranking of the world’s top 10 countries for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, Canada—which ranked first in 2015 and 2014—is now second on the list, having been overtaken by China. This list only considers countries outside the United States, which remains the global leader at 336.84 m2 (2626 sf) of LEED-certified space and 27,699 LEED-certified projects.
A Dodge Data and Analytics “World Green Building Trends 2016 SmartMarket Report,” conducted in 70 countries, found global green building is expected to double every three years, driven primarily by China, India, Brazil, and similar emerging economies. Similarly, the green building materials market should reach $234 billion by 2019—all good developments, as one third of emissions can be attributed to buildings.
Implementation of green building rating systems like LEED will also help support these improvements. This can in part be demonstrated by the aforementioned list, which ranks the top 10 LEED countries in terms of gross square metres (GSM):
- China, at 34.62 m2 (372 sf) and 931 LEED-certified projects.
- Canada, at 34.39 m2 (370 sf) and 2586 projects.
- India, at 15.90 m2 (171 sf) and 644 projects.
- Brazil, at 7.43 m2 (80 sf) and 380 projects.
- Republic of Korea, at 5.95 m2 (64 sf) and 97 projects.
- Taiwan, at 5.66 m2 (61 sf) and 99 projects.
- Germany, at 5.03 m2 (54 sf) and 215 projects.
- Turkey, at 4.78 m2 (51 sf) and 191 projects.
- Sweden, at 3.88 m2 (41 sf) and 210 projects.
- United Arab Emirates, at 3.64 m2 (39 sf) and 180 projects.
Globally, this amounts to more than 82,000 commercial projects, 112,000 residential projects, and 1.4 billion m2 (15.6 billion sf) of LEED-certified space.
Why is the States excluded from this survey? Is it because they a #1 in LEEDS or they are embarassed in the ratings and their performance?
Lew, the article actually addresses your question in the first paragraph.
“This list only considers countries outside the United States, which remains the global leader at 336.84 m2 (2626 sf) of LEED-certified space and 27,699 LEED-certified projects.”