New Mass. Green Buildings in the Month of April

By Ryan Duffy, Communications Fellow

Massachusetts, as well as Boston in particular, have time and again shown their status as pioneers in the green building and energy efficiency movement.  At the beginning of this year, U.S. Green Building Council announced Massachusetts was third state in the nation for LEED, measured in square feet certified per person in 2015. 

Also check out this story about Boston making the Top Dozen list of U.S. Cities with the Most Energy Star Certified Buildings!

Are you aware that Massachusetts is a leader in the production of Living Buildings? We just recognized a new Living Building Challenge attaining building – the Old Oak Dojo in Jamaica Plain! Congratulations to the project team at Next Phase Studios for their hard work to attain this distinction.

Also, this past April alone, 24 building projects were involved in some kind of LEED or Energy Star certification in the state of Massachusetts! 14 buildings were Energy Star certified and 2 projects received LEED Silver certification. One project–Charles River Community Health– received LEED for New Construction certification, and another–a multi-family residential construction project– received LEED for Homes certification. 

5 projects attained Gold Certification 

• the Bryant School Redevelopment 
• MCLA Science Innovation Center
• Harvard Law School Pound Hall 2nd Floor 
• Barrys Corner
• Christopher Heights

LEED was developed to address all buildings everywhere, regardless of where they are in their life cycle. From hospitals to data centers, from historical buildings to those still in the design phase, there is a LEED for every building.

New Balance's brand new headquarters in Allston (with 297,332 square feet of office space) became Platinum certified.  The LEED benchmark of Platinum is very impressive and difficult to achieve.  This building is Platinum because it has 2 green activities that achieved outcomes of energy efficient design, water use reduction, sustainable site selection and development, responsible materials selection and waste management, and enhanced indoor environmental quality.

Read more about New Balance's recently completed headquarters, and the larger projects planned for this area of Brighton and Allston in Bostinno and Boston.com. See photo at right, taken from Bostinno.com

Stay tuned for future green building reports in 2016 — It's an exciting time to be a green building enthusiast or professional in the state of Massachusetts!