Louisville appears to be making gains in the number of green buildings throughout the city. Energy Star, a program promoting energy efficiency, just released its 2009 list of cities with the most Energy Star buildings and Louisville made the cut.
The city narrowly made it onto the top-25 list this year behind a three-way tie for 24th place (but, hey, we were missing completely from last year’s list). I imagine there’s probably a 20-way tie for 26th place, so we’ll see if Louisville can hold on.
The list only counts buildings with an Energy Star label, which locally include the Aegon Tower, the Old Jail building, and several JCPS structures. Los Angeles takes the top spot with 293 Energy Star listed buildings, well above Louisville’s 35 structures.
Commercial buildings carrying the Energy Star label perform in the top 25 percent of similar buildings nationally. Eligible building types include schools, hospitals, office buildings, and retail stores.
The ranking chart indicates that Louisville’s Energy Star buildings saved $1.8 million and prevented emissions equivalent to 2,700 homes.
View the full list here (Warning: PDF) or search the EPA database of all Energy Star buildings.
This ranking seems to be of dubious utility, since raw number of green buildings (as compared to, say, ratio of green to non-green buildings) seems to be to some extent a function of how large the city in question is. Louisville is roundabout the same place on this list as we are in population rankings, so we’re, uh, average? Maybe a little above average? Keeping up with the pack, if you want to think positive.