If you’re an architect, engineer, builder or supplier to the green building industry, 2008 needs to be the year you get your business and professional act together. If you’re a building owner or developer, every future project should be a green building. Here’s why.

According to U.S. Green Building Council statistics, in 2007, there was nearly an 80 percent growth in cumulative Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-registered and certified projects, on top of more than 50 percent cumulative growth in 2006. Essentially, the cumulative number of LEED registered and certified projects has increased 270 percent since the end of 2005! What does this mean for you? If you’re not doing LEED projects today, your competitors are, and they’re gaining the experience and expertise to get those projects in the future.

There were more 3,500 new LEED registered projects in 2007. Figuring a conservative $10 million average size, that represents $35 billion of new projects, and for suppliers, new project opportunities. That means there’s a lot of business out there for firms that want to learn a few new tricks and aggressively market their services to building owners, design professionals, developers and building managers doing LEED projects.

Why has the pace of green building accelerated? To my mind, there are two seminal events during the past two years: First, an outpouring of global concern regarding carbon dioxide emissions from energy use of all kinds, dramatized by the IPCC’s Fourth Report on global climate change. Second, Al Gore’s Academy Award and Nobel Peace Price for An Inconvenient Truth hardly need mention. As a result, the American public is finally demanding action on climate change, in ways large and small. Since American business does know how to listen to the consumer, and a Republican administration knows how to listen to business, everyone now realizes that a good part of their future success will come from reducing “carbon footprints,” through energy conservation retrofits and dramatically lower energy use in new buildings.

The Business Case for Green Buildings

So what does this have to do with the strengthening business case for green buildings? This is what I’ve learned speaking to nearly two-dozen business groups during the past year.

• Saving energy is now a civic virtue. What had been a mostly technical specialty has gone from being a “good idea” to a business necessity, and now to a cardinal value of most large business, government and academic building owners. It’s not just that energy conservation has a positive life-cycle cost impact, but also that it offers a direct reduction in an organization’s “carbon footprint.” A number of studies have shown that energy conservation not only also offers a positive “life-cycle-cost” investment (you make money), but that it’s the most cost-effective way to lower society’s carbon dioxide output, one that doesn’t require new technology, just an ability to finance the investment.

• People are flocking to companies deeply engaged with sustainability. American companies are desperate for good people. If a company cannot attract and keep top talent, by conforming business practices to their values, it will not prosper. How are you demonstrating that you share the values of a new generation of business leaders?

• The evidence is in: Green building increases property values. Last October, Professor Norman Miller of the University of San Diego reviewed more than 2,000 large office buildings from the CoStar database of commercial properties, Miller’s study revealed that ENERGY STAR-rated office buildings (those in the top 25 percent of energy performance) since 2004 have had 2 percent greater occupancy and a $2 per square foot greater rents. To top that, in 2006, ENERGY STAR buildings sold at a 30 percent premium (in dollars per square foot) to non-ENERGY STAR-rated buildings. Case closed! Green buildings are more valuable, and destined to become more so each year. This means that owners and developers are demanding them from design and construction teams.

• The demand is growing. Commercial office tenants are waking up to the business case for productivity and health in LEED-certified buildings, especially those that offer superior daylighting and indoor air quality. In the public sector, the demand is also growing, as one jurisdiction after another makes a commitment to LEED-certify all future public buildings. More than 600 U.S. mayors have signed a pledge to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in their cities to 7 percent below 1990 levels, by the year 2012. Are you preparing your firm to step up to this challenge?

• Investors are flocking to green buildings. Also, more investors are putting billions of dollars into “responsible property investing,” a field of interest that didn’t even exist three years ago. Investors of all stripes made 2007 the year that “responsible property investing” became the emerging norm for Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITs), public and union pension funds, other investment groups, and many individual investors. People want to invest in buildings that will increase in value and that have a lower carbon footprint; green buildings fill the bill.

• Green buildings no longer carry a cost premium. All of the above business case items have certainly stimulated demand for green buildings, but many business people think that the major barrier is still a significantly higher initial cost. However, this year, Harvard’s Green Campus Initiative delivered the first LEED Platinum building (Blackstone Renovation) with no capital cost premium. With more than 1,100 LEED-certified projects already finished, there’s no shortage of design and construction teams with the experience, skill and knowledge to deliver high-performance buildings on conventional budgets.

• There are more people trained in the LEED system than ever before. With more than 42,000 LEED-Accredited Professionals on record and more than 65,000 people having taken LEED workshops, there is plenty of capacity to certify another 1,000 LEED-certified commercial and institutional projects in 2008, and that’s my prediction. With each project averaging 100,000 square feet, we’re looking at 100 million square feet of such projects, well beyond 25 percent of the total commercial building market. (This is only for certified projects; look for more than 5,000 new LEED projects to be registered in 2008 for future certification.)