2030 Districts Project Portal | High Performance Building Districts

An In-Depth Look at the Pittsburgh 2030 District:

The Pittsburgh 2030 District, presented by Siemens and sponsored by Covestro, is an internationally recognized, locally driven strategic initiative of Green Building Alliance (GBA) that supports building owners and managers as they strive toward 50% reductions in energy use, water consumption, and transportation emissions by 2030, while improving indoor air quality. The District connects Property Partners with Community and Resource Partners, driving industry-leading performance through peer-to-peer learning, technical trainings, and data benchmarking. The District leads all 22 international 2030 Districts with 86.3 million square feet committed, and has collectively saved $154.5M in energy and water costs since 2012. The Pittsburgh 2030 District is the first 2030 District to have collected and analyzed indoor air quality data.

The District launched Downtown in 2012 with 61 committed buildings, encompassing core commercial properties and public facilities such as BNY Mellon Center and the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. Seven years later, the District has expanded into Oakland, Uptown, and the Northside and includes 540 properties spanning higher education, healthcare, hospitality, and multifamily residential. Expanding regional impact, Pittsburgh 2030 District created the District Affiliate programin 2018 for properties outside of the boundary to commit to the 2030 Challenge goals. As of 2020, there are 27 District Affiliates which represent 213 buildings and 9.7 million square feet.

Like other 2030 Districts, the Pittsburgh 2030 District follows the 2030 Challenge for Planning, a framework created by Architecture 2030 to drastically improve buildings’ environmental impact by 2030. With separate goals for new construction and existing buildings, the 2030 Challenge sets rigorous but achievable reduction targets in five-year increments. New construction and major renovation projects commit to carbon neutrality by 2030, while existing buildings pursue 50% reductions in energy use (below national baselines). Both new and existing buildings commit to 50% reductions in water use and transportation emissions (below regional baselines). Indoor air quality, our fourth performance metric, does not have a district level baseline. IAQ data is aggregated based on best practices, and recommendations are made to the District from there.