Highlighting Sustainable Building Policies in 66 Cities Around the Globe

More than half of the C40 cities featured have enacted green building policies

(Washington, D.C.) April 2, 2015 – The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), in partnership with C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40) and the World Green Building Council (WGBC), released a compendium of briefs that showcase the sustainability, building energy use and climate change policy work of cities across the globe.

Approximately 74 percent of the cities examined are implementing incentives for a greener built environment. Also, 61 percent have enacted municipal green building policies. Moreover, 49 percent are pursuing sustainable community policies.

Best Policies

The research covers an assessment of policies, plans, projects and programs in 66 C40 cities. Categories include: city-wide sustainability initiatives, private sector green building incentives, green codes, sustainable community development, energy benchmarking, green schools, green affordable housing and sustainable transportation measures. Additional data points on the uptake of green building certified projects are included where applicable. Collectively, nearly 5,000 projects in these cities have achieved LEED green building certification.

“Building energy use is a leading contributor to urban greenhouse gas emissions. So therefore it represents one of the greatest opportunities. Especially for cities to tackle climate change. That came from Mark Watts, executive director of C40.

“This report shows that C40 cities, representing 500+ million people and one quarter of the global economy, are taking bold and innovative steps to improve the long-term sustainability of their municipal and private building infrastructure, for the benefit of urban citizens.”

The compendium of briefs can be found at www.usgbc.org/city-market-briefs and http://www.c40.org/research.