Studies release by the New Buildings Institute (NBI) and CoStar Group, have validated that third party certified buildings outperform their conventional counterparts across a variety of metrics, including energy savings, occupancy rates, sale price and rental rates.

The NBI study states that new buildings certified under the U.S. Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED certification system, on average, perform 25% to 30% better than non-LEED certified buildings in terms of energy use. It also shows a correlation between increasing levels of LEED certification and increased energy savings. Gold and Platinum LEED certified buildings reportedly have average energy savings approaching 50%.

Energy savings under EPA's Energy Star program are equally impressive: buildings that have earned the Energy Star label use an average of almost 40% less energy than average buildings, and emit 35% less carbon.

According to the CoStar study, LEED buildings command rent premiums of $11.24 per square foot over their non-LEED peers and have 3.8% higher occupancy. Rental rates in Energy Star buildings represent a $2.38 per square foot premium over comparable non- Energy Star buildings and have 3.6% higher occupancy. Additionally Energy Star buildings reportedly sell for an average of $61 per square foot more than their peers, while LEED buildings sell for $171 more per square foot.

The group analyzed more than 1,300 LEED-certified and Energy Star buildings representing about 351 million square feet in CoStar’s commercial property database of roughly 44 billion square feet, and assessed those buildings against non-green properties with similar size, location, class, tenancy and year-built characteristics to generate the results.

The NBI study was funded by USGBC with support from the EPA and can be accessed at http://www.usgbc.org/DisplayPage.aspx?CMSPageID=77#usgbc_publications. For more information on the CoStar study, visit http://www.costar.com/News/Article.aspx?id=D968F1E0DCF73712B03A099E0E99C679.