The LEED-Platinum Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., was one of the District’s 111 projects to earn some level of LEED certification in 2024.
2022 photo courtesy of Events DC
How last year’s green building champs stack up against longtime pacesetters.
At the end of January, the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the developer of the global LEED green building program, released its annual list of the Top 10 States for LEED. Massachusetts ranked No. 1 in 2024 based on LEED-certified gross square footage per capita over the past year (4.95 LEED-certified sq. ft. per capita across 132 projects), improving its showing from 2023.
The organization took pains to point out, however, that the non-state District of Columbia — named the world’s first LEED-Platinum city in 2017 — led the nation with 33 sq. ft. per capita across 111 projects. Whether metro D.C. still wears that crown this time next year remains an open question, given that much of that green space is federal government square footage that the current administration is doing its best to reduce. Then again, much of the green space is non-governmental, whether it’s the LEED-Platinum Nature Conservancy in Arlington or the LEED-Gold MLK Gateway II in Anacostia in the District proper.
Surging Massachusetts will add another LEED certification soon at 585 Kendall in Cambridge, where Suffolk Assistant Superintendent Emma Schoonover last week signed the steel beam that will be raised to the top of the structure. Takeda has leased the property’s 600,000 sq. ft. of lab and office space for a global R&D center set to occupy the space in 2026..
Photo courtesy of Business Wire
Back among the states: “After Massachusetts, the top five states were Illinois (4.017 certified square feet per capita), New York (3.438 certified square feet per capita), Washington state (3.03 certified square feet per capita) and Maryland (2.775 certified square feet per capita),” the USGBC announced. In 2024, the top 10 states certified 1,437 LEED projects equaling over 414 million gross sq. ft. — nearly 102 million sq. ft. (24%) in No. 6 California, whose 437 projects constituted 30% of the Top 10’s total projects.
Top 10 States for LEED in 2024
Source: USGBC
The USGBC pointed out that Maryland was the No. 3 state the previous year, and Maryland made the biggest jump in the rankings, climbing by five spots with a 61% increase in the number of projects.
But how do they compare when data from the entire previous 24 years is collated?
For that we can turn to the mega-data, which USGBC generously makes available to the public. These numbers make up one component of Site Selection’s annual Sustainability Rankings published in each year’s July issue. Only in this case, we count LEED-certified projects, not square footage. Here were the top 10 states by total LEED projects as of last summer:
| State | No. of LEED-Certified Projects |
| Texas | 13,362 |
| California | 11,155 |
| Arizona | 4,392 |
| New York | 4,256 |
| Ohio | 3,922 |
| Florida | 3,288 |
| Maryland | 3,242 |
| Colorado | 2,918 |
| Pennsylvania | 2,753 |
| North Carolina | 2,708 |
Here are the top 10 by LEED-Certified Projects Per Capita:
| State | Population (Millions) | No. of LEED-Certified Projects |
| District of Columbia | 0.67 | 2,247 |
| New Mexico | 2.116 | 2,332 |
| Hawaii | 1.442 | 1,019 |
| Arizona | 7.276 | 4,392 |
| Maryland | 6.165 | 3,242 |
| Colorado | 5.812 | 2,918 |
| Texas | 29.528 | 13,362 |
| Oregon | 4.246 | 1,431 |
| Ohio | 11.78 | 3,922 |
| Alaska | 0.733 | 235 |
Six states from the USGBC’s list appear on one or both of the above lists: Texas, DC, California, New York, Maryland, Colorado.
The 2024 Site Selection Sustainability Rankings featured 15 criteria in all. Here were the overall top 10 as published in the July 2024 issue, with those also appearing in either the top 10 by number of LEED-certified projects or top 10 by LEED projects per capita appearing in boldface:
- Texas
- California
- Colorado
- North Carolina
- Arizona
- Virginia
- Illinois
- Oregon
- Minnesota
- Georgia
Five states from the USGBC’s newly released top 10 LEED leaders from 2024 ranked in Site Selection’s top 10 for overall sustainability: Illinois, California, Texas, Colorado and Virginia. —Adam Bruns
One of the more than 11,000 LEED-certified projects in California is this California Department of General Services building near the state capitol in Sacramento.
Photo courtesy of DGS Newswire