As you may already know, New York is the home of Inhabitat’s main headquarters and we are super proud to announce that Governor Paterson has just signed the State Green Building Construction Act mandating that all government-owned new construction and major renovations must meet green building guidelines! We think it’s highly commendable of Governor Paterson to lead our state towards a more sustainable future by setting this momentous example. Hopefully, we will soon see a day where all buildings in New York, government-managed and otherwise, will meet sustainable standards.

Even though the U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED certification system is the most well-known green building standard in the world, New York’s State Green Building Construction Act will be taking an alternate approach and will be based off of guidelines that the state’s Office of General Services will be crafting from scratch. The OGS Design and Construction unit already assigns a LEED professional to every single design project and has a total of 31 certified designers on hand.

We applaud New York’s decision and hope to see more states jumping on the green building bandwagon!

Via ENN