A couple of months ago, we asked the USGBC for a bunch of data related to LEED projects.  Ask and thou shalt recieve, er something like that.  We received a giant, green boat load of data, stretching back all the way to 2000 and covering all LEED Rating Systems up through the end of 2008.

By any measure, the explosion of LEED and the USGBC’s popularity has been unprecedented in the AEC industry.  Let’s dive into that data a little bit, figure out where the growth will be in the coming years and see what has made LEED so popular.

To give some background, LEED has numerous rating systems that each apply to a different building or project type.  To date, the most popular has been the New Construction (NC) Rating System.  Since LEED NC is the oldest rating system, this would make sense.   LEED NC currently accounts for 58% of all certified or registered projects.  Coming in at a distant second are Core and Shell (CS) and Existing Building (EB) with 12% each.  Commercial Interiors rounds out the top 3 spots with 11%.  The other rating systems (also the newest ones) are in at 3% or less, but as we will see later, they are gaining ground.  Click here for a live Google chart where you can explore the data a bit more.

Registered and Certified Projects

Registered is one thing, but Certified is another.  Certified means you have a plaque on the wall, you have been through the whole process, peer reviewed, etc.  The graphs below show that while registered projects are up, and I mean way up, certified projects are slow to move along.  This criticism is nothing new, as this article from 2005 points out.  I don’t have data on whether any of the registered projects were out right rejected, but to date, the average LEED Certified NC project takes 1,015 days, from the date of registration to the date of certification.  That is 2.75 years.

The other interesting thing I found is the growth of year over year growth of NC vs EB.  EB is the fastest growing rating system.  This coincides with what we have been hearing from numerous sources:  existing buildings will become the hot item over the next couple of years due to the current vacancy rates.  Many developers do not want to build new, when the costs are relatively high to build, rather than purchase existing.  (Cushman Wakefield report, CBRE Report, JLL Report)

A Convenient Ad Campaign

I noticed something interesting when I plotted all of this data.  There is a spike in the trends after 2006.  I believe that while green building and sustainable design would have continued on its slow course to the mainstream, it was Al Gore’s movie “An Inconvenient Truth” (wikipedia link) that set the trend ablaze with the general public.

An Inconvenient Truth came out mid 2006.  It broke all kinds of box office records for documentaries, won an Academy Award, was well received at numerous influential film festivals and the companion book became a New York Times best seller.  Al Gore is now a Nobel Peace Prize laureate due in large part because of his work with the climate.

I have often thought that the only thing that engineers would need to get the recognition they are seeking is to have a dramatic television series written about our daily lives in the office

Opening scene: An engineer on the phone with a contractor.  “What do you mean you installed #4 rebar instead of #6?!”  Slams the phone down.  Engineer walks out of office, starts talking to other engineers, “We need to work together to fix this one!”  Cue dramatic opening music and credits.

Anyway, that is exactly what the green movement and the USGBC got with An Inconvenient Truth.  It was a jump start to the tune of a multi million dollar global ad campaign that went more mainstream than the green building movement could have ever hoped for or probably have done on its own.  Gone are the days of design professionals having to trying to convince owners to pursue sustainable solutions.  Owners are asking for it.  All thanks to Al Gore.

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