Colorado topped the U.S. Green Building Council’s annual ranking of states for LEED green building in 2019, followed by Illinois, New York and Massachusetts, according to forconstructionpros.com.
States were ranked based on the number of LEED-certified square feet per capita in the state. In 2019, Colorado certified 102 LEED projects for a total of 4.76 square feet of LEED-certified building per person. There were 2,209 total LEED projects in the U.S. during 2019, for a total of more than 501.08 million square feet of building space.
Other states rounding out the Top 10 included Hawaii, Maryland, Virginia, Minnesota, Oregon and California. Minnesota and Oregon missed the Top 10 list in 2018 and reemerged in eight and ninth place, respectively, in 2019. USGBC notes Washington, D.C., would have had the highest ranking with 52.86 green square feet per capita and 143 green building projects, but it is not included because it is not a state.
