When it comes to green office space, the Fort Worth-Dallas area ranks 16th among 30 markets on the 2015 Green Building Adoption Index, a joint project of CBRE Group Inc. and Maastricht University.
With 13 percent of its office market designated green, Fort Worth-Dallas has maintained its mid-level position in the index, placing 16th overall and one spot up from its 2014 ranking, according to rankings released on Friday.
Fort Worth-Dallas’ position is in line with the national average of 13.1 percent, according to a news release. But the region’s 31.7 percent market penetration rate trails the average of 38.7 percent.
The ratio of buildings-to-building square footage is one of the lowest in the study, indicating that smaller buildings are more active in the market. In all, Fort Worth-Dallas has 210 certified buildings, down slightly from the 218 cited last year.
Of local note, the Dallas’ Uptown-Turtle Creek submarket showed a strong adoption of green building certification at 32.3 percent, while Far North Dallas is closer to the overall market average with a 15.9 percent adoption rate.
Overall, Minneapolis led the Green Building Adoption Index’s city ranking for the second consecutive year, with 70.4 percent of all office space currently qualified as green, down from 77.0 percent in 2014. Maintaining its second place was San Francisco, closing the gap and now boasting a 70 percent green market, up from 67.2 percent in 2014. Chicago, at 63.4 percent, ranked third, while Atlanta (57.8 percent) and Houston (52.9 percent) swapped positions at fourth and fifth.
“Our 2015 study confirmed that green building adoption has been primarily a big building, first-tier city phenomenon,” said David Pogue, CBRE’s global director of corporate responsibility, commenting in a news release.
The newly released index, executed in collaboration with the U.S. Green Building Council and CBRE Research, marks the second release of the annual Green Building Adoption Index. The index shows the growth of Energy Star- and LEED-certified space for the 30 largest U.S. office markets, both in aggregate and in individual markets, over the previous 10 years.