City of Greensburg – Green Building Requirement for New Municipal Buildings

In the aftermath of a May 2007 tornado that destroyed 95% of the city, the Greensburg City Council passed an ordinance requiring that all newly constructed or renovated municipally-owned facilities larger than 4,000 square feet be designed to conform to the platinum rating of the US Green Building Council’s (USGBC) LEED Green Building Rating System. The ordinance further requires that such buildings be designed to achieve all 10 points possible under EA Credit 1 “Optimize Energy Performance.” Achieving this requires a whole building energy consumption reduction of 42% compared to the standard building baseline (ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2004). 

As of 2014, Greensburghad the most LEED buildings per capita in the U.S. Other notable clean energy achievements include 100% of the electricity used in the City of Greensburg is renewable wind energy and it was the first city in the U.S. to use 100% LED streetlights.