Report: Seattle among top cities for LEED-certified residential

It should be no surprise that the Emerald City enjoys being green. A new report by housing-listing site Abodo shows how we stack up to other metropolitan areas.

Judging by the number of completed Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-rated projects—a widely used standard of green building—Seattle is among the top metros for sustainable residential construction. We ranked seventh across major United States metros.

Across the entire metro—that includes Bellevue, Everett, and Tacoma—Abodo counted 975 LEED-certified residential projects. That puts us ahead of Chicago and Portland, but behind New York, Los Angeles, and the top metro, Dallas-Fort Worth.

You can explore individual projects at various levels of LEED certification on the U.S. Green Building Council’s website.

We fall a little in the ranking by square footage, at 10th. While Chicago ranks 11th for number of projects, they’re number one in terms of green-certified residential space.

Broken down by units, though, a January report by Rentcafe found that Seattle ranks second in residential construction, with 11,200. (Chicago also beat us here.)

We also ranked seventh for commercial projects, with 708 projects, or more than 110 million square feet.

• Washington D.C. is Nation’s Capital of LEED-Certified Construction [CS]
• Seattle Leads the Way in Green-Certified Apartments but Additional Costs Create Setbacks for Renters [TRPS]
• Projects [USGBC]