Greenest States in the U.S.: Top States Where It’s Easiest to Adopt a Sustainable Lifestyle (Infographic)

Mihaela Buzec - April 24, 2019

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When deciding to go green, many people start to realize the scarce number of green alternatives available for a sustainable lifestyle. Yet with climate change and environmental problems catching the public eye so often, we see an overall encouragement for green practices, at both micro and macro levels. A large part of anyone’s carbon footprint comes from the buildings in which they live and work, but also from the daily commute. The challenge is to find a place where you have multiple green alternatives for a sustainable lifestyle. So, which are the greenest states in the U.S.?

We created an index to determine which are the best states for a person who wants more access to green alternatives, considering where you have more options to work in a green building, live in a green building, and commute using sustainable means of transportation. For the number of green buildings, we divided the USGBC inventory into commercial and residential, where commercial buildings include institutions (schools, hospitals, etc.), as well as office spaces. For means of transportation, we looked into 3 subcategories: resources for charging electric private vehicles, green public transit, and bike-sharing.

Check out the infographic below for the main findings of our study, and go to the end of the article for our full methodology.

Greenest States for a Sustainable Lifestyle

In creating a methodology for ranking the best states for a sustainable lifestyle, we offer weight to these existing green alternatives, rather than to consequences such as air and water quality or emission levels, where other factors interfere. We considered the available data proportional to the population of each state, to get a fair image of the distribution.

Greenest States in the U.S.

The District of Columbia gets the top score for the best ratio of green-certified residential, commercial, and transportation options relative to the total number of its residents. With a population of around 670,000 people, over 3,100 LEED-certified buildings, around 150 electric car charging stations, 3,700 shared bikes, and electric/hybrid public transportation options, DC climbs to take the first spot among the greenest states in the U.S. This comes as no surprise, considering that DC was awarded the LEED Platinum certification for green initiatives.

The second place for greenest states in the U.S. is taken by California, which offers its 39M residents around 16,500 green-certified buildings, 5,727 electric car charging stations, 3,650 shared bikes, and plenty of environmentally-friendly public transportation options. The Golden State is followed by Colorado, Maryland, and New York to round up the top 5 friendliest states for a sustainable lifestyle in terms of the live-work-commute balance.

At the other end of the spectrum, the states with the least options for a sustainable lifestyle were West Virginia, Nebraska, and North Dakota, where there are little to no green alternatives for residential buildings. Their green scores were all under 30. If you want to see how your state did in our analysis, check out the table below, and use the tabs to sort by the score for each category.

See How Your State Ranks for Green Lifestyle Options

#	State	People per Commercial Building (35% weight)	People per Residential Building (35% weight)	People per Electric Station (15% weight)	Yearly Trips per Person (10% weight)	People per Shared Bike (5% weight)	Green Score
1	District of Columbia	200	12,900	4,900	50	200	90.27
2	California	2,500	65,400	6,800	122	10,700	85.26
3	Colorado	1,800	30,900	7,200	13	4,600	82.19
4	Maryland	1,400	15,300	8,900	12	30,000	82.13
5	New York	3,100	104,200	15,300	163	1,900	81.86
6	Oregon	2,300	46,800	6,100	25	4,000	81.20
7	Massachusetts	2,500	61,700	10,000	63	4,200	81.03
8	Hawaii	1,300	33,800	5,000	0	0	78.48
9	Washington	2,500	95,600	7,400	17	14,300	76.78
10	Idaho	3,000	31,900	17,400	0	14,400	74.77
11	Vermont	2,900	44,600	2,800	0	0	74.56
12	North Carolina	2,600	63,600	14,500	4	50,300	73.35
13	New Mexico	900	8,700	29,400	1	0	73.07
14	Texas	2,100	93,300	22,200	12	15,600	72.74
15	Utah	4,100	78,800	13,200	23	9,100	72.59
16	Wyoming	2,900	48,600	11,200	0	0	71.87
17	Florida	4,000	74,300	15,100	8	8,000	71.70
18	Ohio	2,900	74,900	23,400	8	9,100	71.64
19	Arizona	2,500	151,300	13,700	6	11,300	71.06
20	Nevada	3,500	115,500	11,400	2	16,000	70.97
21	Virginia	2,400	85,400	12,400	2	0	70.68
22	Illinois	3,800	115,800	21,800	35	2,200	69.57
23	Connecticut	3,800	85,600	9,200	1	0	68.23
24	New Jersey	3,400	108,000	27,300	13	11,900	67.49
25	Montana	3,500	41,200	21,500	0	0	67.45
26	Maine	4,600	83,100	8,100	3	0	67.06
27	South Carolina	4,600	48,000	17,300	0	0	65.77
28	Michigan	4,800	76,900	16,400	1	79,400	65.13
29	Tennessee	5,300	124,500	14,900	0	10,700	65.08
30	New Hampshire	4,800	102,400	10,200	0	0	64.69
31	Minnesota	5,900	122,000	15,600	9	3,000	64.46
32	Missouri	5,900	110,500	14,200	8	28,100	64.46
33	Pennsylvania	3,400	216,800	26,000	34	8,500	63.34
34	Georgia	3,900	196,200	12,100	15	102,000	61.83
35	Rhode Island	5,600	150,900	11,700	0	0	59.51
36	Wisconsin	6,900	140,600	18,100	0	6,800	59.48
37	Indiana	5,300	157,500	27,200	0	26,500	58.54
38	Alaska	900	184,600	46,200	0	0	58.08
39	Delaware	5,400	235,900	17,800	0	0	53.42
40	South Dakota	5,300	213,900	23,100	0	0	53.09
41	Iowa	5,800	283,500	22,400	0	31,200	51.76
42	Kansas	7,400	290,400	14,000	0	14,500	51.13
43	Arkansas	4,900	212,700	33,800	0	0	50.78
44	Alabama	9,600	173,200	26,500	0	12,100	48.46
45	Louisiana	4,600	310,900	41,600	9	0	44.01
46	Mississippi	3,100	373,300	42,100	0	0	43.67
47	Kentucky	7,100	316,000	33,300	0	0	39.90
48	Oklahoma	9,300	259,800	47,500	0	0	33.27
49	North Dakota	6,200	0	35,500	0	7,400	28.64
50	Nebraska	9,600	631,300	22,300	0	10,500	24.49
51	West Virginia	14,600	612,300	19,300	29	0	11.73

*The numbers in the table were rounded up to the closest hundred, except for the yearly trips per person category.

Methodology

The Green Score is a RentCafe index based on the following variables:
- Total number of LEED-certified residential and commercial buildings (according to USGBC, as of 04/2019)
- Number of electric car charging stations (according to US Department of Energy, as of 04/2019)
- Number of trips taken with electric or hybrid transit modes per person, per year (according to the American Public Transportation Association, as of 12/2018)
- Number of shared bikes (according to NACTO, as of 12/2016)
- Total population according to the US Census Bureau.
The number of residents per commercial building received a 35% weight, the number of residents per residential building received a 35% weight, the commuting category received a total weight of 30%, divided as follows: people per electric car charging station – 15% weight; number of yearly trips per person using electric or hybrid public transit – 10% weight; the number of residents per shared bike – 5% weight. The final green score is a maximum of 100. The state with the highest score received the highest ranking.
We made an effort to include the most recent data publicly available. Some data may not be up to date. Other entities may provide green-building certification and other sources of data may be available.

Fair use and redistribution

We encourage you and freely grant you permission to reuse, host, or repost the images in this article. When doing so, we only ask that you kindly attribute the authors by linking to RentCafe.com or this page, so that your readers can learn more about this project, the research behind it and its methodology.

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Mihaela Buzec

Mihaela Buzec is a senior writer and online content developer for RentCafe. She covers topics about everything related to the renting lifestyle, from decorating and interior design to finding the right apartment, frugal living, money saving advice, and more. She dives deep into topics of interest, writing well-researched comprehensive guides on subjects such as renting with pets, saving on utilities, or avoiding rental scams to help renters stay informed and live smart.

Mihaela holds a BA in English and German Language and Literature, an MA in Current Linguistics, and she is currently pursuing a PhD in neurolinguistics.