Buildings

Seattle, United States of America

Seattle sets the standards for green buildings

Download Seattle: Green buildings PDF

What is it?

A collection of successful regulatory standards, measures and incentives for the building industry that have delivered a national record number of sustainable buildings in the private and public sectors.

Seattle reduced energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions by requiring all new City buildings over 5,000 square feet to meet the new state LEED™ (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) building ratings that measure the sustainability of buildings, and by providing financial, height and density bonuses for private projects meeting LEED™.

As a result, Seattle now has one of the highest concentrations of sustainable buildings in the USA and a powerful sustainable building industry worth $671 million.

How does it work?

Having initially established a Green Building Team in 1999, Seattle regrouped its green building experts to form a single business unit called City Green Building in 2005. Its main program is funded through interdepartmental resources and staffed by green building experts in residential, commercial, institutional and city capital projects.

Using its strong relationships with the City's water and energy utilities and their incentive programs, it connects developers, design teams and building permit applicants with green building resources and helps eliminate code-barriers to building green.

Seattle's successful programs include the “Sustainable Building Action Plan”, with its three strategies for promoting green buildings in the marketplace; and the “Density Bonus”, which offers greater height and/or floor area to new mixed-use developments meeting LEED Silver or higher standards. The City makes extensive use of the LEED Rating System, the national benchmark for high performance green buildings. Through its “City LEED Incentive Program 2001-2005”, Seattle provided several million dollars of incentives for such buildings.

Key results

• 17% of all new residential construction are Green Homes
• $671 million gross revenue per year in Green Building Activity
• 1160 LEED Accredited Professionals in Seattle – the highest concentration in the Nation
• 26 LEED Certified Buildings – the most LEED certified buildings of any other city in the nation/world - 10 City Buildings 9 Private, 4 Non-Profit, 2 County, 1 State
• At least 26 Buildings are registered for LEED (6 City, 4 Non-Profit, 13 Private, 3 State). Total 8.1 million square feet, over $2 billion in capital investments
• 313 Built Green Residential projects (representing 933 Built Green housing units)
• 251 Built Smart Residential projects (203 market rate projects, 48 affordable housing projects
• 18 SeaGreen projects complete (representing 771 units)

Next steps

Seattle is deepening and widening its commitment to green buildings by integrating sustainable design principles within the design review process; educating homebuyers on green homes; providing technical support to key stakeholders; recycling building waste (67,000 tons/year or 15% of landfill waste); and much more.

Application

Seattle believes that strong, clear building regulations are the key to creating green buildings. While energy audits can help existing buildings become more efficient, they believe that implementing green building standards for city-funded projects ensures that future buildings will be efficient and environmentally friendly.

There is strong evidence that there is a correlation between cities that have green building policies and those that have the highest concentrations of private green building development – the 10 strongest green building markets in the nation are in cities that have established public policies that promote green building.