Top 25 Energy Star Cities

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released their annual ranking of the top 25 U.S. cities with the most commercial Energy Star building certifications earned in the past year (2014). For the first time since the ranking emerged in 2009, Los Angeles is not ranked No. 1--instead, Washington D.C. gets first billing with 480 Energy Star-certified buildings, boxing out Los Angeles (475 buildings) by a mere five buildings. Although Washington D.C. built the the most Energy Star commercial buildings in 2014, Los Angeles came in first with the highest cost savings ($155.8 million).

In 2013, Philadelphia broke into the top 10 ring, which we credited in part to to the Philadelphia Building Energy and Benchmarking Law passed in 2012 (which requires large city buildings to report their energy usage), but was knocked down two notches in 2014 to no. 12. Boston was the only newcomer to the top 10 since 2013, with 176 Energy Star-certified buildings completed last year (earning them the no. 10 spot). Riverside, Calif., made the most dramatic jump in the rankings, from 76 Energy Star-certified buildings completed in 2013 and a no. 22 ranking to 127 buildings completed in 2014, elevating them to no. 14. You can see a breakdown of all the data in our interactive below. 

Methodology: EPA defined cities by the U.S. Census Bureau's "core based statistical areas," and then tallied the total number of buildings that earned the Energy Star certification in each city during 2014. 

Energy Star Stats Among the Top 25 Cities:

  • 4,600 Energy Star-certified commercial buildings were built in 2014
  • 1,129,700,000 certified square feet 
  • $1,203,200,000 in cost savings 
  • Electricity use for one year equivalent to 728,100 homes

The EPA also compiled rankings for mid-sized cities (populations between 200,001 and 2 million people) and small cities (populations under 200,000 people). Below are the top three cities for each area, but a list of the top 10 can be viewed here.

TOP THREE MID-SIZED CITIES: 

  1. Virginia Beach-Norfolk-Newport News, Va.-N.C.
    Building count: 81
    Total floor area: 7.4 million sq. ft.
    Cost savings: $4.5 million
    Equivalent homes' electricity use for 1 year: 3,500
  2. San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif.
    Building count: 70
    Total floor area: 7.8 million sq. ft.
    Cost savings: $10.5 million
    Equivalent homes' electricity use for 1 year: 3,000
  3. Austin-Round Rock, Texas
    Building count: 65
    Total floor area: 10.7 million sq. ft.
    Cost savings: $10.2 million
    Equivalent homes' electricity use for 1 year: 7,300

TOP THREE SMALL CITIES:

  1. Odessa, Texas
    Building count: 31
    Total floor area: 3.1 million sq. ft.
    Cost savings: $2.4 million
    Equivalent homes' electricity use for 1 year: 1,800
  2. Daphne-Fairhope-Foley, Ala. 
    Building count: 27
    Total floor area: 2.5 million sq. ft.
    Cost savings: $1.9 million
    Equivalent homes' electricity use for 1 year: 1,400
  3. Sioux City, Iowa-Neb.-S.D.
    Building count: 24
    Total floor area: 2.2 million sq. ft.
    Cost savings: $1.1 million
    Equivalent homes' electricity use for 1 year: 1,600

For more information and to see rankings from past years, visit Energy Star >>