Living Building Challenge & Zero Energy

To pursue a more environmentally friendly and regenerative future, King County has committed itself to registering at least ten Zero Energy/ Living Building Challenge projects by 2020. This commitment is a priority action in the County's 2015 Strategic Climate Action Plan, as an effort to meet the County’s target of 100% of new capital projects be carbon neutral by 2030.

Zero and Living Buildings are game-changers for our environment and our customers. We certified our first Net Zero Energy building, and we are on track to complete ten more of these projects in the next few years. We are showing that dramatically reducing our energy and water use is not only feasible, but beneficial for our environment, county residents, and bottom line.

Dow Constantine, King County Executive

King County has been able to build a framework to accomplish this goal. The framework has resulted in further increasing awareness of emissions reductions opportunities in the built environment, increasing awareness of the Living Building Challenge, and establishing replicable tools and practices to initiate ZE/ LBC projects for public work, infrastructure, and industrial type projects.

In addition, to meet the County’s ambitious GHG emission reduction targets, it is necessary to dramatically scale-up county efforts to reduce use of water, energy, and material resources in county construction and operations.

Setting the ideal as the indicator of success

The Living Building Challenge is a philosophy, certification, and advocacy tool for projects to move beyond merely being less bad and to become truly regenerative.