The Zoning Ordinance’s Section 22.20 – Green Building Requirements ensures that major new projects and substantially rehabilitated buildings are planned, designed and constructed using environmentally sustainable and energy-efficient practices. Projects fall under these requirements when:

• They exceed 25,000 square feet of gross floor area AND
• Require a Special Permit under any provision of the Zoning Ordinance OR
• Are subject to Section 19.50 – Building and Site Requirements

The City of Cambridge does not mandate that projects achieve Certification through a green building rating program. Rather, the intent of the green building ordinance is to use green building rating systems as a technical framework to ensure that buildings throughout the City achieve a higher level in building energy use and efficiency, sustainability, and resiliency.

This data set combines information from eight sustainable building certification programs, including two City regulatory programs, to show the extent and location of sustainable buildings in Cambridge.

For inclusion in this data set, a building must meet at least one of the following criteria: receive approval from the City’s Article 22 regulatory process; receive certification from the Passive House program; receive certification from Enterprise Green Communities; or receive LEED certification under a LEED system that requires the whole building to meet sustainability standards.

Some buildings meet two or more of these criteria. Information provided about the applicable sustainable building programs for qualifying buildings includes certification levels, certification types, ratings, or scores. Additionally, this data set contains information about other certifications (ENERGY STAR, Fitwel, and WELL) that may apply to covered buildings. If a covered building participates in the City’s BEUDO regulatory process, this data set provides two key emissions figures for the building.

In this dataset, we use Cambridge GIS Building IDs as unique identifiers for certified sustainable buildings. Building IDs refer to one physical structure, even if there are multiple street addresses associated with that structure.