Report: Western Region Leads Country in LEED, Energy-Efficient Building Designs

A survey conducted for PinnacleOne also found that 49 percent of participants were unfamiliar with LEED green-building design standards.

A recent study showed that 60 percent of public owners in the United States have implemented construction projects with energy-efficient designs in the past year.

The survey, conducted for PinnacleOne, a Phoenix-based consulting firm, also found that 20 percent of the owners currently use or plan to use LEED green building standards in the coming year. And surprisingly, almost half (49 percent) of the study participants were unfamiliar with the standards.

"While they may not be familiar with specific green building standards, with a majority of owners implementing some type of energy efficiency design in the past year it is obvious that LEED is forcing the issue of energy efficiency," said Darr Hashempour, vice president of energy solutions at PinnacleOne.

"The education sector and the Western region, especially California, have been pioneers in using innovative technologies to achieve new levels of energy efficiency. This a product of the high energy costs in the region and that bond approvals needed for school construction are often contingent on designs being energy efficient. We believe the Northeast region will soon follow the lead of the West on energy."

The 2005 PinnacleOne Pulse of U.S. Public Construction survey examined the opinions of 167 public owners involved in construction projects throughout the United States.

Some of the major energy related findings:

Education Sector Is Smart on Energy

Almost three-quarters (73 percent) of the education sector has implemented energy efficient designs in the past year and 39 percent of this sector either currently uses LEED green building standards or is planning to use them on projects in the coming year.

West Leads, Northeast Lags

Public owners in the Western region of the country are leaders in the pursuit of energy efficiency. Eighty percent of these owners (versus 60 percent of owners overall) have implemented energy efficiency designs in the past year. At the other end of the spectrum, less than half (45 percent) of owners in the Northeast say they implemented such designs.

Lack of Demand for LEED

Among the majority (51 percent) of owners who were familiar with LEED standards, almost half (44 percent) had no plans to use them. Of those owners with no plans to implement green building standards, almost two-thirds (65 percent) cited a lack of demand for these improvements and another quarter (26 percent) didn't believe the LEED standards were worth the increased cost.

Hot Technologies

Among the owners that implemented energy efficiency designs in the past year, there were clear favorites among the equipment/technologies that they used on the projects. More than two-thirds (68 percent) of these designs utilized new HVAC equipment and 42 percent involved energy efficient lighting or lighting controls. Central plant co-generation upgrades were used in 10 percent of the designs.

The study, a national telephone survey conducted in August by Market Measurement Inc., examined the attitudes of public owners on construction issues related to project management, energy/environment and claim resolution.