Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design for Existing Buildings v4.1 (LEED-EB v4.1)-Certified Projects in San Francisco, New York City, and Washington, D.C.: Comparative and Correlation Analyses

The purpose of this study was to evaluate LEED for Existing Buildings version 4.1 (LEED-EB v4.1) gold-certified office projects in San Francisco, New York City, and Washington, D.C., using the exact Wilcoxon–Mann–Whitney, Cliff’s δ, and Spearman’s correlation tests. This study finds that San Francisco outperforms New York City in “indoor environmental quality” (IEQ) for office projects (p = 0.009). San Francisco also outperforms New York City and Washington, D.C., in overall LEED score (p = 0.001 in both cases). “Energy”, “transportation”, and “IEQ” were correlated with the overall LEED score in San Francisco (r = 0.80 and p = 0.003; r = 0.69 and p = 0.018; and r = 0.61 and p = 0.049, respectively); “energy” and “waster” were correlated with the overall LEED score in Washington, D.C. (r = 0.62 and p = 0.014, r = 0.71 and p = 0.003, respectively); and “energy” was correlated with the overall LEED score in New York City (r = 0.61 and p = 0.001). This study concludes that higher environmental sustainability in LEED-certified buildings can be achieved if a broader range of LEED-EB v4.1 key performance indicators show a positive and strong correlation with the overall LEED score.