Green Concepts and Vocabulary 41

movement in the construction industry has emerged.With this in mind, we

witness a number of forward-looking general contracting companies such
as DPR Construction, Inc. jumping on the green bandwagon and being
well prepared and well placed to deliver successful green projects. According
to DPR, which is an employee-owned firm, they have LEED-trained and
accredited professionals in every one of their 19 national offices across the
country. DPR, which boasts a resume of over $1 billon in green build-
ing projects, claims to have trained more than 500 professionals in overall
sustainability and green building in addition to all of the available LEED
programs. Furthermore, 27% of DPR’s professionals having acquired LEED
accreditation; this is reportedly the highest percentage of LEED accredited
professionals in the nation among general contractors.Their main competi-
tors in the United States are: Skanska USA Building, Turner Construction,
Clark Construction Group.
In January 2009, President Obama inherited a depressed economy, yet
even with the downturn in the economy and the construction industry, the
amount of “green buildings” being built in the United States is estimated
to be in excess of $10 billion. According to the Department of Commerce
(2008), the construction market constituted about 13.4% of the $13.2 trillion
U.S. GDP, which includes all commercial, residential, industrial, and infra-
structure construction. Commercial and residential building construction
on their own accounted for about 6.1% of the GDP (source: Department
of Construction—2008). Furthermore, as of 2006, the USGBC’s LEED
system certified 775 million sq.ft. of commercial office space as green.
This represents a mere 2% of US commercial office space. However, this
is expected to increase exponentially, with green buildings accounting for
5–10% of the US commercial construction market by 2010. Still, accord-
ing to Howard Birnberg, executive director of the Association for Project
Managers, “Whatever the condition of the economy, technology continues
to advance. While it remains to be seen if Building Information Modeling
(BIM) will be a game changer for the industry, the ability to integrate new
technology is an expensive and endless challenge. Training of design and
construction staff in new technology and important subjects such as proj-
ect management has been widely neglected during the downturn. When
workloads improve, many organizations will need to play catch up on their
staff training.”
At the annual 2010 Greenbuild Conference, the USGBC announced
that it achieved a major milestone in the certification of more than one
billion square feet of commercial real estate through its LEED Green
Building Rating System. It further reported that another 6 billion square feet