Study Claims half of Non-Residential Buildings Will Be Green by 2015

A new study from venture capital firm “Good Energies Inc” claims that 50% of the non – residential buildings in America will be green by 2015. Good Energies Inc used the USGBC’s LEED standards to define what they qualified as a green building for the study.

The details of this study are published in a book “Greening Our Built World” by Greg Kats, senior director for Good Energies.  To complete this study, the firm interviewed 100 architects and obtained information from the USGBC, the American Institute of Architects, the Federation of American Scientists, the National Association of State Energy Officials,the American Public Health Association, the National Association of Realtors, the Real Estate Roundtable,  and the World Green Building Council.  Using this information, he was able to estimate the growth over the next five years.

When I first read about this, I assumed they were saying that half of the new non-residential buildings would be green by 2015, but they are indeed talking about the building stock; a much more ambitious claim.  The number of non residential buildings that meet the USGBC green standards is currently estimated to be between 10 and 15%, so this is quite a leap in five years.  The study cites green retrofits as a key to this progress,as each green retrofit not only adds one to the “green column”, but it takes one away from the non-green side.  50% of the building stock seems like a bit of a reach to me, but then again, I didn’t just conduct a two year study on it.   On thing we agree on is a significant growth in the green building industry, whatever the actual number is in 2015 will be progress.

To read more about this study, check out this article from the Wall Street Journal, or if you want to read a lot more, check out Greg Kats Book “Greening our Build World.”