Green Building and Obama's Impact

According to green building expert Jerry Yudelson, President Barack Obama's administration will make green building a permanent part of the economic, cultural and financial landscape.

Every new, large federal building will be LEED certified, and at least 25 (if not 35) states will mandate green certification for all new buildings, he says.

We'll see green measures for hundreds of local, state, and federal buildings, and a lot of money will be going into this area, Yudelson adds. And because of this, people will gravitate toward the green building industry -- we'll see green jobs and a boom of sorts.

Yudelson includes this prediction in his top ten trends to look for in 2009. They are:

• Green building will continue to grow more than 60 percent
• Green building wil benefit from the new Obama presidency
• The focus of green buildings will begin to switch from new to existing buildings
• Awareness of the coming global crisis in fresh water supply will increase
• LEED Platinum projects will become more commonplace
• Solar power use in buildings will accelerate
• Local governments will increasingly mandate public and private green buildings
• Zero net energy designs for new buildings gain increasing acceptance
• Green homes will come to dominate new home home developments
• European green building technologies will become better known and adopted in U.S. and Canada