The market for sustainable design and construction continues to grow. However, the well-ordered world of sustainable design and construction process through compliance with the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards has become more complicated, with the growing acceptance of alternatives to LEED. The complexities and unfamiliarity of LEED Version 4 (v4) sustainability standards, and the growing client demand for more targeted sustainability options, such as healthy buildings or energy savings, have industry firms scrambling to keep up.
The market growth for green design and construction can be seen from the results of the ENR Top Green Buildings survey. As a group, the Top 100 Green Design Firms in 2017 generated $6.21 billion in design revenue from projects registered with and actively seeking certification from third-party ratings groups under objective sustainable-design standards, such as the USGBC’s LEED standards. For the group, this revenue is a 3.7% increase from the $5.99 billion in 2016.