The feasibility of flexible and adaptive green certification in accelerating zero carbon cities

This research measures the feasibility of using a flexible and adaptative green certification in accelerating the transition toward zero carbon cities. Thus, the EDGE program, a web-based application, is used to evaluate its influence on the number of LEED program certifications in the countries where this web-based application program is applied. A panel dataset of yearly LEED and EDGE-certified buildings numbers is created, and a synthetic control method is implemented for the top five countries for EDGE-certified projects. Counterfactuals are constructed to mimic the number of LEED-certified buildings in a treated country using controls based on countries where no EDGE program is recorded. It can be concluded that the establishment of an EDGE program causes a significant decrease in the number of LEED-certified buildings, especially in Colombia, Mexico, and Peru. The result remains robust when performing several robustness analyses. Analysis does not mean that the LEED will be replaced by the EDGE, but that a significant number of new certifications would change over the coming years. While many studies discussed the barriers for the adoption of green certifications, this research highlights the necessity of directing more research to keep up with updated smart tools and applications to increase the proliferation of the green certifications.