The District of Columbia leads the nation on the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC)’s latest list of top 10 states for LEED-certified commercial and institutional green buildings per capita. The list is based on 2010 Census information.

The District of Columbia leads the nation, with 25 sq. ft. of
LEED-certified space per person. For example, the two International Monetary Fund (IMF) headquarters buildings in downtown Washington, D.C. earned LEED gold for the operations and maintenance of an existing building.

“Using per capita, versus the more traditional numbers of projects, or pure square footage, is a reminder to all of us that the people who live and work, learn and play in buildings should be what we care about most,” said USGBC SVP of LEED, Scot Horst, in a statement.

“2010 was a difficult year for most of the building industry, but in many areas, the hunger for sustainable development kept the markets moving.”

The top LEED states per capita in 2010, including the District of Columbia were:

· District of Columbia: 25.15 sq. ft.
· Nevada: 10.92 sq. ft.
· New Mexico: 6.35 sq. ft.
· New Hampshire: 4.49 sq. ft.
· Oregon: 4.07 sq. ft.
· South Carolina: 3.19 sq. ft.
· Washington: 3.16 sq. ft.
· Illinois: 3.09 sq. ft.
· Arkansas: 2.9 sq. ft.
· Colorado: 2.85 sq. ft.
· Minnesota: 2.77 sq. ft.

More than 40,000 projects currently participate in the USGBC’s
commercial and institutional LEED rating systems. They comprise more than 7.9 billion sq. ft. of construction space in all 50 states and 117 countries.