Planned Green Building Activity Over the Next Three Years in the U.S. in 2018

Green building projects are becoming the norm. A new report from the Green Building Council shows that within three years, nearly half of the construction industry correspondents expect the majority of their projects to be green. Building owners are demanding it, with 57% expecting the majority of their projects to be green by 2021. If the landlord writing the check wants green projects, that’s a good sign for the industry.

But what type of projects are going green? The Green Building Council broke it down further. As the chart illustrates, over half of new commercial construction is green. Green institutional construction is common in North America, China, and the Middle East, but a lack of demand in other areas of the world is holding back the project type. Retrofits are common in developed nations, but in emerging nations, with new construction constantly on the rise, retrofits are far less common. Overall, green interior projects and green communities are the least common across the globe.

As each country works towards a more sustainable global environment in its own way, the landscape of green construction projects will change. In rapidly growing emerging nations, a bedrock of green buildings must be made new. Aging cities must adapt and retrofit dated building. Together, with a commitment to green buildings, the construction and real estate can do its part to ease the environmental burden of buildings.

Read the full report: World Green Building Trends 2018