Waves of optimism are coursing through the veins of green building enthusiasts. Thanks to a growing track record of success, a proliferation of government incentives and grant programs and honed marketing strategies, sustainable projects are popping up in all shapes, sizes and building types�from schools to industrial plants to complete communities. Institutional and investor resistance to environmentally responsible development has so eroded that the greeners of America are predicting that in a decade or so, environmental construction will simply be a matter of course.

"It would not surprise me" if it became the norm within the next decade, says John L. Knott Jr., CEO of both Dewees Island, a "green" island retreat near Charleston, S.C., and The Noisette Co., which is building a 3,000-acre environmentally sensitive urban redevelopment in N. Charleston.