Much has been written, retrospectively, about the year that was 2010. This is different. This is a green building forecast identifying 5 actionable insights in real estate for 2011.

The goal is a quickly readable assessment of, and projected outlook for green building trending with the largest implications for the commercial and residential real estate markets. Each of these specific actionable insights into green building offer huge market opportunity in 2011:

1. More than 30% of non residential U.S. construction starts in 2011 will be green building. That almost unbelievable share of commercial construction is up from less than 2% of construction starts in 2005 (tracked in the same index). The precise percentage may move as the economy improves and construction starts rebound, but the growing market share is clear.

2. The greening of existing buildings as achieved through LEED for Existing Buildings® (LEED EB O&M) will represent more than 50% of all LEED projects registered in 2011. LEED is no longer only the most widely utilized third party certification green building standard in this country for new construction, but in the coming year, LEED EB O&M will make further inroads in the more than 60 billion square feet of already constructed building stock in this country. Greening the operations and maintenance of those 4.5 million existing commercial buildings can not only provide competitive advantage for that newly greened building, but also can make a significant environmental contribution.

3. LEED Core & Shell (LEED C&S) construction starts will more than double from 2010 to 2011. After a devastating year during which LEED C&S construction starts in 2010 were less than 20% of similar starts in 2009, this rating standard ideally positioned for merchant real estate developers ‘building on spec’ will dramatically increase in use, with even a modest uptick in the broader economy. Most businesses occupy leased space and most of the businesses have green aspirations.

4. Early this year international registered LEED projects will cross the 2 billion square feet threshold in total and represent more than 30% of all LEED projects registered in 2011. In its 2007 Strategic Plan the USGBC identified international market expansion as a top priority through 2013. India will lead in international (i.e., outside of North America) LEED registered projects in 2011. And different from domestic trending, the vast majority of those projects will be LEED New Construction. The UAE will also register a significant number of projects and the average project size will be more than 4 times the average U.S. project size.

5. The role of the Federal government in furthering green building will become geometrically more prominent and the single largest market driver in 2011. From the GSA, building and leasing LEED Gold space to considering vendor GHG emission calculations, and the Army using less energy as a mission strategy to adopting ASHRAE 189.1 as its green building standard, the impact will be far greater than the footprint of the Federal government’s vast real estate holdings.

Each of these 5 insights offer huge market opportunities. There are other trends that could have been included in this compilation, but each of these 5 offer dollar economic opportunities and environmental efficacy above all others. And the import that one of these top opportunities is geographically beyond the U.S. borders should not be lost.

The reader is cautioned that these are forecasts about happenings whose actual outcomes have not yet occurred. Despite confidence in the methodology used in these projections (something we have been doing for over 5 years), there is risk and uncertainty in all forecasting including the forecasts above.

A special thank you the USGBC and GBCI staff who assisted with the project data and the many green building industry players who provided market information, all that allowed for this forecast.