Two
recently released studies, one by the New Buildings Institute and one by CoStar
Group, have validated what the green building community has known all along:
third-party-certified buildings outperform their conventional counterparts
across a wide variety of metrics.
In the NBI study, the results indicate that new buildings
certified under the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC)
Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)
certification system are, on average, performing 25-30 percent better than
non-LEED certified buildings in terms of energy use. The study also
demonstrates that there is a correlation between increasing levels of LEED
certification and increased energy savings. Gold and Platinum LEED certified
buildings have average energy savings approaching 50 percent.