Maryland Leads in LEED

In 1998 the US Green Building Council established a rating and certification protocol for new commercial construction known as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). Since then the program has expanded to include existing buiding retrofits and residential development. Today there is over 1.4 billion square feet of LEED space in over 20,000 projects in the US and Maryland leads the way.

According to this article by Stuart Kaplow, Maryland, relative to its population, “has more LEED® projects than any other state. The first certified LEED Platinum building was in Maryland. Maryland was one of the first states to offer a green building tax credit in 2001. Today, 14 local governments in Maryland have enacted a LEED based green building initiative, including several that have mandatory green building laws imposed on private building.”

HoCo is one of those 14 local governments. Property tax incentives are offered to developers that achieve Silver status or higher in their buildings. Those incentives work. Our new building in Emerson is on track to receive a LEED Gold rating when its review is completed in the next week or so.

Maryland has also taken the lead with the International Green Construction Code. This year the General Assembly passed legislation that authorizes counties to use the IgCC code for public and private construction. It is the first state in the country to do so.

It certainly won’t be the last.