Green Buildings

About Green Buildings

Green buildings are buildings that reduce the negative impacts of the built environment on human health, the world’s climate, and the natural environment.  They reduce the negative impacts throughout a buildings life-cycle through their energy saving and environmentally responsible design, construction, operation, and maintenance.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) is a green building certification program used worldwide. It was developed by the non-profit U.S. Green Building Council (USBGC).

Benefits of the program include:

  • Verifies that a building was designed to improve energy and environmental quality.
  • Verifies that sustainable strategies are achieved.  These strategies include sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality.
  • Provides a framework and standards for design, construction, operations, and maintenance of buildings. 
  • Provides a framework for healthy, highly efficient, and cost saving green buildings.
  • Helps building management decrease operational costs.
  • A great investment in energy efficiency and reduction in carbon emissions into the environment.

For further information on the LEED program please visit the U.S. Green Building Council (USBGC).

LEED Commercial Buildings

LEED is the most widely recognized green building system for designing, construction, and operation of buildings and interior spaces of buildings.  LEED buildings and interior spaces improve energy efficiency for businesses, lower carbon emissions, and create a healthier environment to live and work. LEED buildings and interior spaces are a critical part of addressing the world's climate crisis, resiliency, and supporting more equitable communities.  

LEED provides a point system to score green building design and construction. The system has five basic categories for scoring: Sustainable Sites, Water Efficiency, Energy and Atmosphere, Materials and Resources, and Indoor Environmental Quality. Buildings are awarded points based on the extent various sustainable strategies are achieved. The more points awarded the higher the level of certification achieved from Certified, Silver, Gold, to Platinum.  

There are many LEED commercial buildings in the Northern Virginia region.  Detailed regional information on LEED buildings, including the location, number of buildings, square footage, certification level, and trends can be found on NVRC’s LEED dashboard.

LEED Dashboard 

Click on graphic to go to the dashboard.

LEED Dashboard