S.F. & Oakland - Top List of Best Cities for Green Building

Posted by Expert Gadget Reviewer on Wednesday 31 March 2010

Lots of dueling surveys floating around these days -- Just this past Friday I posted: SF Ranked # 3 in Green Buildings... which highlighted the fact that the U.S. EPA ranked the San Francisco Metro Area in third place for having the most energy efficient buildings (Washington D.C. was 1st and L.A. was 2nd). Today comes a survey from Cushman & Wakefield ranking the top 25 U.S. Markets in Opportunity for Green Building, and San Francisco comes in 1st ,with Oakland in 2nd.

The Green Building Opportunity Index, conducted by Cushman & Wakefield, in collaboration with the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance's (NEEA) BetterBricks initiative, is the first office market assessment tool to provide comparisons of top U.S. office markets on the basis of both real estate fundamentals and green development considerations. Unlike the EPA survey which focuses on the number of Energy Star-labeled buildings in each city, the Green Building Opportunity Index ranks each market on multiple factors, in addition to the number of Energy Star labeled and LEED certified buildings.

According to the index, the top 12 markets overall were:

  1. San Francisco
  2. Oakland
  3. Midtown - New York
  4. L.A.
  5. Chicago
  6. Orange County
  7. Downtown New York
  8. Washington D.C.
  9. San Diego
  10. Boston
  11. Seattle
  12. Portland Ore.
To see the complete national overview click: (HERE)