Greening the Regulatory Landscape: The Spatial and Temporal Diffusion of Green Building Policies in U.S. Cities

Abstract

This paper explores the determinants of green building policy adoption and the spatial and temporal diffusion of such policies. This research builds substantially on previous work by employing an original, robust database of green building policies created by the author for 200 cities in the United States—the Green Building Regulation Database (GBRD)—and a hazard rate model to determine the effect of a range of variables on policy adoption. The results indicate that economic, political, and climate factors, such as the number of patents issued per capita, carbon emissions per capita, and the existing policy landscape, are significant predictors of green building policy adoption. Cities categorized as policy innovators and early adopters of green building policies tend to have lower carbon emissions per capita, are better educated, and have more restrictive land use regulations.