The U.S. Green Building Council has released a report on the energy performance of its LEED® Registered products (green building rating system) and found that the biggest energy winners and losers of the year are commercial buildings and multi-family projects (housing).
The new U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) report analyzes data on commercial buildings and multi-family projects for the past year, covering the period from January 2011 to December 2011.
The report found that commercial buildings had a combined energy performance index (EPI) of 41.3, while multi-family buildings achieved a score of 34.6.
Despite these results, the report found that new commercial construction - the only new type of construction highlighted in the report - achieved a score of 28.8.
"The report tells us what we already know: for every dollar spent on green building, we get two times the environmental benefits," said Patricia Stebbins, CEO of the USGBC.
"The industry is moving in the right direction, but this report reminds us we have a long way to go."
The EPI is an assessment of the energy performance of a building, accounting for multiple factors including occupants, building and utility performance. It is a balanced measure that represents the energy use of a building or neighborhood and is calculated annually using data collected in the first quarter of a given year.
The report found that the most common targets set by the industry to improve energy performance are the amount of daylight in a building and water and energy use.
The report does show that things are improving. Multi-family buildings (apartments and housing) had a 7.7 percent decrease in EPI between 2011 and 2012, while commercial buildings saw a 6.4 percent decrease in EPI.
This is good news, especially considering that multi-family buildings made up 70 percent of commercial buildings' total EPI for 2011.
"I'm delighted to see the improvement in this year's report," said Robert Bey, president and CEO of the USGBC. "There are more LEED®-registered projects than ever before, and it's great to see the growth of LEED® Plus and LEED® Platinum."
The LEED® programs include projects like the Power Plant in Philadelphia, which achieved Gold, as well as the second-largest commercial project to receive a Gold certification, the two-building downtown government complex in Los Angeles, which achieved
Related links: