The Houston Green Building blog regularly provides data on LEED projects in the Houston area. The data is gathered from several sources and the sources can be somewhat problematic and it is constantly changing.
In this blog, I get data from the USGBC / GBCI. I’ll provide fine print defining what data is included and I’ll strive for consistency, yet here are many of the issues with the data:
1. USGBC / GBCI data has been input by thousands of different project teams, so there is a wide variety of quality and quantity. For example, some users will put in their personal city or zip code instead of the project’s. Or they may not put it in at all. USGBC can only report what has been input.
2. Confidential projects. Project teams have the option to list their projects as confidential and no project name, city, size, LEED rating system or level is provided. Older, unedited posts may be missing confidential projects, while more recent data includes confidential projects in aggregated numbers, but not in detail. Looking for a LEED project on the map and can’t find it? Its probably registered as confidential.
3. Definition of a place. I’ll define the political boundary used in a list, whether the data is per city or MSA or chapter area. Example: City = City of Houston; MSA = 13 counties of the Houston area; Chapter = The Texas Gulf Coast chapter that stretches from the Louisiana border to Corpus Christi. In general, the MSAs are the most fair comparisons. You’ll notice big shifts between city and MSA numbers for cities such as Phoenix, Atlanta and Dallas.
5. Time. As with everything, this data is a snapshot of one moment in time. Those cheering “We’re #1” today will probably be playing catch-up next month. I’ll list dates on the data. I try to update the Houston numbers monthly and do new full 50+ city rankings twice a year.