Marquette Plaza, an LEED certified building in downtown Minneapolis

For the send consecutive year, Minneapolis has claimed the top spot in CBRE’s National Green Building Adoption Index. The index calculates the amount of commercial square footage per lease in the 30 largest markets in the nation that can be considered green. For purposes of the index, commercial real estate is considered green when buildings either attain LEED certification or are ranked in the top 25% of Energy Star scores in a given market, according to REJournals.com. Minneapolis just edged out San Francisco for top honors, with 70.41% of commercial real estate square footage available for lease considered green versus San Fran’s 70.02%. Chicago rounded out the top 3 with a score of 63.41%, while Kansas City finished last in the index with 10.91%. The commercial and residential real estate sectors accounted for 45% of total US energy consumption in 2014. The index is in its second year of publication. [REJ]