Why Build Green?

Home to many of the world's leaders in the design, construction, and operation of sustainable buildings, San Franciscans are planning, building, and preserving our built environment to balance present needs and natural resources with the history and culture of our past. From the Barbary Coast to today's center of innovation, designers, builders, and planners have applied their creativity and passion to create the dynamic and iconoclastic City by the Bay.

To continue to thrive while providing for future generations, San Francisco has some of the world’s most innovative environmental initiatives, incentives, and legislation. A built environmment that reduces waste and protects human health is essential to our common future, as is mitigating and adapting to changes to our climate. 

Many are motivated to build green for the benefit of people and the planet. Investment in green building is also growing because the business case for providing healthy, affordable, waste-eliminating, resource-efficient, and even restorative buildings is excellent.

• The Business Case for Green Building: 2013 Report by the World Green Building Council

• In 2013, McGraw Hill projects green building investment in the US will top $100 billion

• Economists from UC Berkeley and UCLA found that homes in California with a credible green label have sold for an average of 9% more. 

• Several studies have documented that green buildings have enjoyed higher efoccupancy, higher effective rent, and greater sales price in the United States in recent year:

  • Economics of Green Building, Transatlantic Evidence (2013) Eichholtz et al., Review of Economics and Statistics 

  • Impact of Energy Labels and Accessibility on Office Rents (2012) Kok and Jennen, Energy Policy

  • Does Green Still Pay Off? (2010) Miller, Journal of Sustainable Real Estate

• US EPA has found that buildings which consistently tracked energy use with Portfolio Manager over a 4 year period cut their energy use by 7%. 

• ULI GreenPrint Center for Building Performance charts rapid expansion in investment in sustainable property worldwide, with 4.4% energy reduction and 3.1% water use reduction year over year as of 2012 across 65 million square feet participating in the program worldwide.

• Global Real Estate Sustainability Benchmark, a similar global voluntary performance measurement and disclosure initiative, found 6% year-over-year carbon emissions reduction among participants, and that 51% of respondents are acquiring properties with green labels or earning labels for their stock.

• Do Green Buildings Make Dollars and Sense? A series of regularly updated reports documenting the affirmative in a large national real estate portfolio.

• San Francisco is front and center in this movement. As of April 2013, more than 58 million square feet of properties in San Francisco had earned LEED certification - 80% earning the designation for measured performance improvements under the LEED for Existing Buildings Operations & Maintenance. More than 73 million square feet have earned the ENERGY STAR.