How has the sustainable built environment changed over the past five years? What does the data tell us about the future of green building? Here's an overview of the current market landscape based on registered and certified LEED projects from 2017 to 2021.

LEED certification

A project is considered to be certified once it has completed all prerequisites assigned to its project type and earned at least 40 points through meeting credit requirements. Between January 2017 and December 2021, over 36,835 projects earned LEED certification, covering 4.63 billion gross square feet of space.

In the first three quarters of 2022 (January through September), over 5,000 additional projects were certified. There was a decline in the number of projects certified in 2019, but since then, there has been an increase in the number of projects certified every year.

These projects include a wide range of space types; however, the top six are:

Single family residential: 13,875 projects
Office: 9,204 projects
Retail: 4,630 projects
Multi-family residential: 3,118 projects
Higher education: 1,356 projects
Warehouse and distribution: 1,191 projects

While ranking third for the number of projects certified, LEED retail projects experienced the highest amount of growth over the past five years, with a total increase of 35%.

Certifications over the past five years can be found around the globe. The highest concentration of LEED projects certified can be found in the United States and Canada (74%). After that, the top three regions for LEED certification are:

East Asia (9%)
Europe (6%)
South Asia and Latin America/the Caribbean (tied at 4% each)

LEED registration

Registered projects provide a projection for future LEED certifications, and project registrations around the world are increasing. Irrespective of the pandemic, the average growth rate was 20% for the past 5 years.

Over 36,830 projects with 6.99 billion gross square feet were registered from January 2017 to>December 2021. Between January and September of 2022, over 8,800 additional projects were registered.

These projects are spread across all the LEED certification types: LEED for Building Design and Construction (BD+C), Interior Design and Construction (ID+C), Operations and Maintenance (O+M), Neighborhood Development (ND), Homes, and Cities and Communities.

LEED BD+C registered projects increased from 1,732 projects in 2017 to 3,349 projects in 2021. That’s a jump of 93%.
LEED ID+C has grown from 870 projects registered in 2017 to 1,738 projects in registered in 2021—almost 100% growth.
LEED O+M has grown from 767 projects registered in 2017 to 1,001 projects in 2021—30% growth.
The most growth in the past five years was seen in the residential sector, with a 152% increase. 2017 saw 1,415 projects registered, and in 2021, the number went up to 3,572 projects.

During the past five years, the majority of LEED registrations have been located in the U.S. and Canada (66%), followed by East Asia (12%), Europe (9%), and South Asia (7%), with Latin America and the Caribbean (4%) rounding out the top five.

To learn more about these projects, visit the LEED project directory or find county-specific data in our market briefs.

Learn more about LEED with our LEED Week content.

Visit the LEED project directory

LEED data trends from the past five years