{"id":249645,"date":"2012-07-27T15:41:00","date_gmt":"2012-07-27T15:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/?guid=604d08e97bb11835d56a0df28796aecd"},"modified":"2012-07-27T15:41:00","modified_gmt":"2012-07-27T15:41:00","slug":"two-billion-or-bust-leed-square-footage-tips-the-scales-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/two-billion-or-bust-leed-square-footage-tips-the-scales-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Billion or Bust: LEED Square Footage Tips the Scales"},"content":{"rendered":null,"protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-UfjprG3nNrU\/TfeEY3-LULI\/AAAAAAAAAGo\/62zpOjAKvtw\/s1600\/Brendan_usethis.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-UfjprG3nNrU\/TfeEY3-LULI\/AAAAAAAAAGo\/62zpOjAKvtw\/s200\/Brendan_usethis.jpg\"><\/a><b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.usgbc.org\/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=61#bowens\" target=\"new\">Brendan Owens<\/a>, LEED AP, P.E.<\/b><br \/>Vice President, LEED Technical Development<br \/>U.S. Green Building Council<\/p>\n<p>Ever been to New York, NY? Picture the island of Manhattan in your mind (<a href=\"https:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps?q=google+maps+manhattan&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;hq=&amp;hnear=0x89c2588f046ee661:0xa0b3281fcecc08c,Manhattan,+New+York,+NY&amp;gl=us&amp;ei=37ESUJ_nD87uiQKIyoCgBw&amp;ved=0CAkQ8gEwAA\">or Google&rsquo;s<\/a>). Now multiply that by three. Or, picture the entire District of Columbia. <\/p>\n<p>Both are roughly equivalent to two billion square feet &ndash; the amount of LEED-certified space that now exists around the world, a milestone that we <a href=\"https:\/\/new.usgbc.org\/articles\/leed-certified-building-stock-swells-two-billion-square-feet-worldwide\">announced yesterday<\/a>. And while it&rsquo;s difficult to conceptualize so much space, I think we can all agree that it&rsquo;s a milestone worthy of celebration &ndash; and one to which so many people, from architects to project managers to building inhabitants &ndash; have contributed.  <\/p>\n<div><a href=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-rAzCb4OLrLU\/UBK10GzQFII\/AAAAAAAAAgg\/SKbfGRBWNKc\/s1600\/LEEDlogoblog.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/4.bp.blogspot.com\/-rAzCb4OLrLU\/UBK10GzQFII\/AAAAAAAAAgg\/SKbfGRBWNKc\/s1600\/LEEDlogoblog.jpg\"><\/a><\/div>\n<p>To exemplify that point, let&rsquo;s take a peak at some of the recent certifications:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Google&rsquo;s LEED Platinum office in Mumbai, India, a commercial interiors project<\/li>\n<li>A new construction project in Lem, Denmark: the LEED Platinum Vestas Technology Center<\/li>\n<li>LEED Gold Warrensburg Elementary School in Warrensburg, Missouri<\/li>\n<li>LEED Platinum Ernst &amp; Young Plaza in Los Angeles, California, an existing buildings project<\/li>\n<li>LEED Platinum University of California Irvine Medical Education Building in Irvine, California<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Two billion is a great benchmark for LEED&rsquo;s growth. Twelve years ago, LEED started as a singular rating system for new construction projects. Now, LEED encompasses a suite of rating systems that touches just about every possible building type, from hospitals to our homes, offices to outlet malls. We&rsquo;re certifying two million square feet of commercial LEED space every single day in 130 countries. There are 50,000 LEED-certified and LEED-registered projects, comprising a grand total of nine billion square feet. And if that isn&rsquo;t enough to blow your mind, perhaps the 22,000 LEED for Homes certified units will. (51% of which are in the affordable housing sector!)  In twelve years, LEED has made more than a splash in the marketplace (cannonball, anyone?), which would have never been possible without the continued input and involvement of a vast array of industries. Today, LEED is a rating system that more than 1,200 companies, from architecture firms to product manufacturers to Fortune 500 companies, are <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/gsaletter\">willing to stand behind<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p>To all of you LEED users out there, whether your certified project was a commercial building that accounts for hundreds of thousands of square feet, or a small storefront of just a couple hundred, we applaud you &#8211; and we thank you. Green building is our collective movement, and no matter how far you moved the needle, you&rsquo;ve helped tip the scales to two billion square feet. One billion = big. But two billion? It&rsquo;s safe to say that LEED has grown larger than we ever imagined in the early days, and now, it&rsquo;s difficult to imagine a built world without it. <\/p>\n<p>All this amazing work notwithstanding &ndash; let&rsquo;s all agree that this is just the beginning!<\/p>\n<div>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/UsgbcBlog?a=_gZz8mGd10o:3NggSi7lWyU:yIl2AUoC8zA\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/UsgbcBlog?d=yIl2AUoC8zA\" border=\"0\"><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/UsgbcBlog?a=_gZz8mGd10o:3NggSi7lWyU:qj6IDK7rITs\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/UsgbcBlog?d=qj6IDK7rITs\" border=\"0\"><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/UsgbcBlog?a=_gZz8mGd10o:3NggSi7lWyU:I9og5sOYxJI\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~ff\/UsgbcBlog?d=I9og5sOYxJI\" border=\"0\"><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/UsgbcBlog\/~4\/_gZz8mGd10o\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" alt=\"\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,57,251],"tags":[479,2969,240,2970,4],"class_list":["post-249645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-green-building-posts","category-leed-news","category-usgbc-news","tag-google","tag-green-building-milestone","tag-green-homes","tag-international-green-building","tag-leed"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=249645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/249645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=249645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leedpoints.com\/green-building-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=249645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}