LOS ANGELES — Chicago’s office market maintains its top status in the 2019 edition of CBRE’s Green Building Adoption Index, an annual report that measures the energy sustainability of the top 30 office markets in the United States. The index (GBAI) reviews the various office markets’ adoption of two green building certifications — the EPA’s Energy Star rating and the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certification. The GBAI is tracked in terms of both square footage and number of buildings. More than 167 million square feet of Chicago’s office space is certified green, or approximately 71.1 percent of the metro’s total office inventory (235 rentable million square feet). Coming in behind the City of Broad Shoulders is San Francisco (67.5 percent), Atlanta (59.3 percent), Minneapolis/St. Paul (57.1 percent) and Los Angeles (56.6 percent). Chicago is a growing and thriving office market. Tech firms such as Uber, Amazon and LinkedIn, as well as coworking concepts Spaces, Industrious and WeWork, have all taken down large swaths of office space in the metro area. According to third-quarter data from CBRE Research, more than 5 million square feet of office space is under construction in metro Chicago. “Going green is one key to any …
