USGBC Finds Research Underfunded

Despite the increasing popularity of green building, research on high-performance building practices and technologies represents a tiny percentage of federally funded research. According to a report released in March 2007 by the Research Committee of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), only 0.2% of federally funded research, an average of $193 million per year from 2002 to 2005, is aimed at green building topics; that funding represents only 0.02% of the estimated value of building construction in the U.S.

The report, titled “Green Building Research Funding: An Assessment of Current Activity in the United States,” limits its scope to federal funding from 2002 to 2005 for research on the environmental and health impacts of buildings; urban planning and brownfield research, for example, were excluded. The authors