Oregon ranks eighth among the top states for green building leadership, according to the U.S. Green Building Council‘s annual Top 10 LEED States.

In 2021, Oregon certified 26 LEED projects and 1.81 certified square space per capita. This is the fourth time Oregon has ranked among the top LEED states, previous placing in 2019, 2013 and 2010.

Washington state ranked second; Illinois topped the 2021 list.

“Oregon once again ranking among the top LEED states demonstrates a growing commitment from state leaders and the private sector to build more sustainable buildings and communities,” said Peter Templeton, USGBC president and CEO, in a news release. “The high number of certified LEED projects in Oregon reflect a longstanding commitment from both government and the private sector to find new and innovative ways to ensure more sustainable buildings and communities. People across the state benefit every day from the work that both the private and public sectors are doing in their communities to create healthier environments and minimize the impacts of climate change.”

The 26 certified projects in Oregon in 2021 include numerous single-family homes, government buildings and private businesses. Notable projects include the Multnomah County Central Courthouse in Portland, achieving LEED Gold certification; Portland Community College OMIC Training Facility in Scappoose, earning LEED Silver certification; The Porter Portland, earning LEED Silver certification and the first hotel in the United States to certify under LEED v4.1; Pacific One Square in Portland, achieving LEED Gold recertification; and a single-family home at Village Center in Salem, achieving LEED Gold and one of numerous private residences that earned certification.

The Top 10 list is based on 2020 U.S. Census data and includes commercial and institutional green building projects certified throughout 2021.

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Prior to the Great Recession, Portland was the “shining hill that everyone wanted to be” when it comes to sustainability and green building, according to New Buildings Institute project manager and architect Webly Bowles. But that has changed, she said.

“People were coming here to see how we were doing things,” she said. “And now we’re just falling back into the status quo. So we want to inspire our design community to get back to that.”

The inaugural Sustainable Building Week, planned for this fall, was born out of organizers’ desire to restore Portland’s reputation as a green industry leader. And with construction booming here and the rest of the country, Bowles said, the need to further emphasize sustainability became even clearer. So she and like-minded Portland design professionals put their heads together and came up with a series of educational events.

Starting Oct. 8, panel discussions, lectures, building tours, design slams (challenges), open houses and more will take place in Portland – all in the name of promoting green building practices in the local market. These events will be hosted by a wide range of design professionals and professional organizations, including the International Living Future Institute (ILFI), the U.S. Green Building Council, the AIA (American Institute of Architects) Portland Committee on the Environment, the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild, Portland State University and many others.

“I am one of those people who came here searching for sustainability,” said Reilly Loveland, a project manager with the New Buildings Institute.

Loveland came to Portland after working in Seattle and Los Angeles. Seattle actually provides a model for Portland to follow, she said.

“In LA it never felt coordinated and wasn’t hitting home,” she said. “In Portland it’s really institutionalized, but the actual execution in terms of buildings is kind of lacking. We’re passionate and invigorated here, so we thought why not bring everyone together to have a positive event and really push that.”

Terry Campbell is the director of business development for Sustainable Northwest Wood and the chairman of the International Living Future Institute’s Portland Collaborative. He played a big role in organizing the first Sustainable Building Week.

“We’re called a collaborative, yet when I took over as chair I found we didn’t collaborate with other professional organizations,” he said. “Portland’s been usurped in the ILFI realm, and for me the term collaborative meant we needed to start reaching across and building bigger momentum. In 2000 through about 2005 it was easy, it was new and it was innovative. That’s not the case anymore.”

The ILFI Portland Collaborative will present an Oct. 9 workshop geared to guide builders through the various areas of the public process through which all projects must pass. In other words, the workshop will touch on everything from legislation that affects the industry to permitting, public outreach and navigation of the local bureaucracy.

“We’re going to basically have a teach-in where we spend 45 minutes getting people connected to various things,” Campbell said.

Another unique event will be a green building slam presented by the Northwest EcoBuilding Guild on Oct. 12. This will feature 10 separate presentations, each just 10 minutes in length. They will spotlight 10 different innovative green building projects.

Sustainable Building Week is so new that organizers are still fleshing out the complete lineup.

“We’re really excited about this,” Bowles said.

To check out a lineup of events and venues, visit .

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They occupy massive amounts of land and are seen as enablers of fossil fuel consumption. But now parking lots – often considered antithetical to sustainability – are being recognized for their green aspects.

“We’ve had a lot of interest from people looking for recognition for the things they’ve done,” said Trevyr Meade, program manager for the Green Parking Council in New Haven, Connecticut.

The council was formed five years ago by a group of parking operators and real estate professionals after the U.S. Green Building Council stopped doling out Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design ratings to developments with more than 75 percent of their space dedicated to parking.

“They saw an opportunity to create a certification standard in the industry, and also to educate,” Meade said.

The GPC spent four years developing version 1.0 of its Green Garage Certification system, and last year launched the beta version. And last week, the GPC announced that seven sites around the country were the first to earn Green Garage status. Four are located at office buildings, one is at a university (Cornell), one is at a hotel (the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, Mass.) and the other is at an airport (Denver International).

As with LEED, GPC certification is awarded via a points-based rating system; the categories are management practices, programs, structure and design. Points are awarded, for instance, to owners that institute recycling programs, or encourage a “diversity of mobility.” Innovative design ideas are considered, with points awarded for provision of public open space and even community gathering areas.

New and existing structures are eligible for program participation.

TriMet achieved “net zero” status for its Southeast Park Avenue Station Park & Ride near the Oak Grove neighborhood. That means it creates as much energy through its rooftop solar array as it uses in its basic building functions, such as elevators and lighting. The multimodal transit center is among the sustainable features along the transit agency’s new orange line.

The parking garage near Oak Grove may be the greenest in Portland. It features a rooftop garden, ample bike parking and seven electric vehicle charging stations. Sixty-eight percent of the garage and station area are set aside as restored habitat, and all of the building’s stormwater runoff is captured and treated on-site.

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It costs a lot. It involves stacks of paperwork. It’s considered by some observers to be too prescriptive, and has debatable efficacy.

As other rating systems have arrived, many developers, architects and builders aren’t feeling as enamored as they once were with Leadership in Engineering and Environmental Design, or LEED, which for over a decade was the gold standard in green building certification.

“The general feeling on the street in Portland is that there are other rating systems more aggressive,” said Ozzie Gonzalez, sustainability director for CH2M Hill. “There are newer dimensions to sustainability.”

Fewer clients are asking for LEED, according to architect Trish Nixon, managing principal at LRS Architects.

“The conversations we’re having are different,” she said. “People are looking for alternatives. They’re more aware these days.”

Lease Crutcher Lewis‘ Janice Westcott also perceives a shift.

“We’re still trying to define what the next benchmark will be,” she said. “The industry hasn’t figured that out yet.”

LEED, devised around 15 years ago, is a points-based rating program for green building design and construction. More than 24,000 U.S. buildings have a LEED rating. It’s required for most public-sector projects, and in eco-forward Portland, it’s the norm for Class A commercial construction. U.S. Green Building Council has certified 557 projects in 10 years. Some that earned platinum status – LEED’s highest level – include REI‘s headquarters in downtown and the Port of Portland‘s headquarters at Portland International Airport.

But building professionals say the system has fallen out of favor with some clients who want to go above and beyond LEED, are tired of overwhelming documentation, or simply care less about earning a LEED plaque.

“It’s been a really great driver for the sustainability conversation … it’s my own belief that it’s been revolutionary,” Nixon said. “But now there’s a big focus on energy efficiency.”

Designers like Nixon said they often use a LEED scorecard on materials and construction practices, even if an owner doesn’t want a formal LEED rating. That is in part because LEED can add between $80,000 and $100,000 to an average project budget, plus the $900 registration fee and other costs. Also, tallying points requires thorough documentation and vetting.

“We feel it should affordable,” said green consultant Summer Gorder of EcoReal Solutions. “Developers now are sick of the documentation … they’re kind of exhausted by (LEED).”

Then there’s the question of the program’s effectiveness. Studies tracking energy and water usage in LEED buildings have found little distinction between the four rating levels – certified, silver, gold and platinum. The program focuses on a building’s construction, and observers have noted that owners and occupants can operate a building however they like.

Meanwhile, some owners simply don’t care about LEED anymore. A plaque doesn’t carry the same cachet it once did, according to building industry professionals, and standing out in a city teeming with green structures is more difficult now. Some observers believe that some builders pursue LEED merely so that they can charge tenants more to occupy fancy eco-friendly buildings.

“We’re at an interesting time right now,” said Renee Loveland, sustainability director for commercial developer Gerding Edlen. “Many people are still using it, but we’re kind of looking for the next big thing. You know, how do we go further?”

New standards include eco-districts, net zero buildings, Green Globes certification, the Living Building Challenge and the WELL Building Standard. Eco-conscious owners now want to consider the health and rhythms of a building’s occupants, and the vitality of its surrounding neighborhood. They’re looking to generate their own power, and recruit occupants’ buy-in on sustainability goals. Indoor air quality and acoustics are being considered.

The fourth version of LEED is being rolled out now through Oct. 26, 2016. Some updates are meant to address a common critique of LEED – it fails to account for how a building operates. They include building orientation and climatic site considerations, more aggressive energy and water metering and stricter material source disclosure.

“We’re trying to reduce a building’s carbon footprint, and do it more holistically,” said Elaine Aye of the USGBC Portland office.

The update process began in 2012. Every firm on the USGBC’s disparate update committee had a vote, which slowed the process, Aye said. To improve the system, more rigid rules were required, but there was already a feeling that the LEED process was “pretty stern,” she said.

“It was a painful process for the GBC,” she said.

If LEED is falling out of favor, it’s the product of its own success, Gorder said.

“I think there are more options now, and that’s a good thing,” she said. “In Portland, we look at what makes sense, not just getting a plaque.”

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Oregon, for years touted as a national leader in green construction, recently slipped out of the list of top 10 states for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design projects.

After ranking fifth in 2010, Oregon was 12th in 2011 for LEED commercial and institutional projects per capita, according to the list released last week by the . Some industry leaders say the economy is partially to blame for the drop, while others contend that the statistics are misleading.

“The economy in the last two years has skewed things,” said Jason F. McLennan, CEO of the . “Oregon has had a tough time in the commercial construction sector and lost a bit of ground.”

But Jerry Yudelson, a leading green building expert and founder of Tucson, Ariz.-based Yudelson Associates, said the list should not cause too much alarm in Oregon.

“There is no question that the Pacific Northwest, especially Portland and Seattle, are leaders in the green building field,” Yudelson said. “This list doesn’t distinguish between how many LEED gold and platinum buildings you have, so a lot of the square feet being counted are just LEED-certified, which is kind of like kissing your brother – not real exciting.”

Yudelson cited Portland’s Ecotrust building as evidence of the region’s early leadership in sustainable construction and LEED. He also mentioned the Edith Green-Wendell Wyatt building renovation, which is expected to achieve a LEED platinum rating.

But the General Services Administration’s major modernization is an outlier in the Oregon market, according to McLennan. Oregon is not particularly rich in government buildings, he noted.

Washington, D.C., on the other hand, benefited from its major federal portfolio, and topped the list by a huge margin. LEED ratings were mandated for many of the city’s government buildings.

Some states’ rankings may be distorted because of their numbers of federal structures.

“A single, 500,000-square-foot GSA building might be built in a city and completely skew the statistics; that’s not an indicator of interest in green building throughout any particular state. It just means GSA has an interest and built a big building,” McLennan said.

The District of Columbia topped the list with 31.50 square feet per capita, followed by Colorado with 2.74 square feet. Oregon had 1.80 square feet. Delaware was last, at 0.03 square feet.

“One year doesn’t make a trend,” said Michael Armstrong, senior sustainability manager at the city of Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. “I don’t think we’re necessarily seeing a change in (Oregon’s) commitment to green; it’s just a different construction market generally.”

Scott Rose, a DLR Group principal, said he has seen a slowdown in LEED projects over the last year or two. He attributes part of the slowdown to a lack of public funding.

“Oregon’s economy is stagnant, and unfortunately it wasn’t surprising to see that we’ve lost a bit of our foothold (in LEED projects),” he said. “Really you could probably see the slowdown right after the crash, but it’s taken this long for it to register within the state of Oregon. It will take that long to pick up again.”

However, some Oregon firms are starting to look beyond LEED to even more ambitious green building standards, Rose said.

“LEED will eventually become outdated,” he said. “It won’t be the benchmark anymore.”

, for instance, is registered for the 2030 Challenge – a global initiative for architecture firms to adopt carbon-neutral design by 2030.

“I think in the architecture and engineering communities in general, people are saying that if we’re going to be prudent designers, we can’t settle for LEED anymore – we have to go beyond that,” Rose said.

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Congress Center, a 23-story office building in downtown Portland, earned recognition from the U.S. Green Building Council for improvements in its operations and maintenance, announced on Monday.

The USGBC awarded the building a gold rating in its green building rating system, Leadership in Environmental and Energy Design for Existing Buildings: Operations & Maintenance. The Operations & Maintenance track is designed to rate a building’s recycling programs, exterior maintenance, cleaning practices and chemical use, as well as systems upgrades and operational efficiency.

The building’s tenants cooperated to help attain the gold rating, according to David Genrich, property manager for Shorenstein’s Congress Center.  The recycling program was increased to ensure that 60 percent of the waste generated at the property is recycled. Only “green” cleaning products are used on site, and most paper products were converted to recycled paper. And 39 percent of Congress Center tenants use some form of alternative or mass transit.

The hexagonal tower is clad in charcoal gray reflective glass with pink granite at the two-story ground level. It was built in 1980 and renovated in 2001.

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A move by the U.S. Green Building Council may lead more architects to consult the Audubon Society of Portland, a group dedicated to improving bird safety.

The USGBC is adding a bird-safety credit to its Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design rating system, and some observers contend this will influence architects’ building designs.

According to some estimates, millions of bird deaths each year are caused by collisions with buildings. The Audubon Society’s Portland chapter has worked to make buildings safer for the 209 bird species that fly through the city as part of the Pacific Flyway north-south migration route, and the research has aided many local architects already.

Erik Matthews, executive director of Portland-based , recently was called upon to draw up his first intentionally bird-friendly design for a new Turtle Island Foods facility in Hood River. To accommodate his client, who is an Audubon Society member, Matthews worked with Mary Coolidge, assistant conservation director of the Portland chapter, to discuss design possibilities.

The Audubon Society of Portland in 2009 began an effort to understand the magnitude of the region’s window-strike problem by conducting surveys of certain downtown sites. Twenty-two buildings now participate in the voluntary “” program, which asks tenants and building users to report dead bird sightings and window strikes.

“If you’re not looking (for window-struck birds), then you won’t see the evidence,” Coolidge said. “They’ll get stuck in planters or picked up by crows and house cats, swept up by maintenance crews, and just go missing.”

Audubon Society members routinely check the BirdSafe sites, collecting between 50 and 70 dead birds each season. Local residents each year bring an additional 200-300 injured or dead birds to the Audubon Wildlife Care Center because of window strikes, according to Coolidge, who is working with the city of Portland to draft bird-friendly building guidelines for architects and developers.

Overnight lighting on city buildings is one threat to a safe migration season. Lights lure birds into urban areas after dark, and risk hitting buildings during daytime.

Fox Tower was the first to participate in Portland’s “Lights Out” program, a national Audubon Society campaign that encourages building operators to shut off night-lighting during migration season. The Congress Center, the Portland Building, and a few others also are in the process of enrolling, according to Coolidge.

The major design trend that threatens bird safety is an increased use of glass. Modern, glass-walled buildings are dangerous for birds, but so are elements such as windows that meet at the corner of a building, windowed sky-bridges and glass courtyards.

“They think they can continue flying because they see the reflection of tree and sky, or the reflection of an ‘urban canyon,’ which is the passageway between two adjacent buildings,” Coolidge said.

The main safety strategy is to use window glass that has been treated with opaque or translucent films, glazes or decals.

Some green building advocates are already aware of bird-safety issues, including the architects of the high-profile Oregon Sustainability Center. The design team consulted with the Audubon Society of Portland and is considering adding frit or screening that will reduce glass transparency on the ground floor as well as on corners, according to Kyle Andersen, a principal at

Coolidge gave bird-safety presentations to the American Institute of Architects’ Committee on the Environment a few weeks ago, and will soon do the same for in Portland.

Working on the Turtle Island Foods project inspired Matthews, whose work at Surround Architecture often focuses on sustainability, to think about ways to offset the disruptions that buildings cause for not only birds, but other animals as well.

“When we were working on the design (for the Hood River facility), we thought it would be great if the building had a green roof that allowed deer to come up to nibble on the roof,” Matthews said. “But it’s a romantic notion. All designers should be cognizant of their work’s impact, but that level of things will take some time to work its way into urban settings.”

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The U.S. Green Building Council recently released a report highlighting sustainable building policy advancements made by state legislatures in 2011.

Oregon was highlighted for its success in several areas, including the state’s budgetary support for green buildings, mandatory minimums in building codes, and investigation into ways to increase the availability of energy-consumption information.

Approved House Bills that stood out include:

• – sunsets the Business Energy Tax Credits and creates tax credits for commercial construction or retrofit projects that achieve high standards for energy efficiency
• – directs the Oregon Department of Energy to provide grants and loans to support energy efficiency or clean energy projects, including projects to weatherize, upgrade or retrofit public schools (“cool schools”)

Other measures sparked discussion that the council found noteworthy, even though the bills did not pass:

• – relates to energy savings contracts
• – relates to energy disclosure for residential buildings
• – would have required energy disclosure for residential and commercial buildings

The council also acknowledged the state Building Codes Division for adopting the 2011 Oregon Reach Code, which establishes an optional set of verified “green” construction standards, based on the International Green Construction Code.

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