Abstract
The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System provides third-party verification for environmentally sustainable construction. But while LEED-certified buildings provide healthier work and living environments, Previous studies have shown that LEED certification does not provide any direct economic incentives to owners and developers. To address this issue, this study aims to investigate the economic benefits of LEED criteria. The objective of this study is to examine whether or not there is a significant correlation between median household income and the number of bus stops and light rail stations for a given parcel that meet LEED sustainable site criteria for public transportation access. The findings showed that the number of bus stops had a positive correlation with median household income, which means that more bus stops a given parcel had that met LEED criteria, the greater the median household income of a block group where the given parcel was located would be, though this positive correlation was very weak.
