As far as design goes, a Maui home, a new Hard Rock Cafe in Waikiki, a Downtown Honolulu office tower and a Pearl City convenience store don't have too much in common. But all four seek to be certified as environmentally friendly under a growing national program.

Hawai'i property owners in the past several years have dramatically pursued more projects — 42 this year, up from one in 2001 — that seek certification from the U.S. Green Building Council called Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, or LEED.

The designation is increasingly touted by designers and builders, though the general public, including people who may one day work or live in a LEED building, generally have little understanding or appreciation of the program.

"It's starting to gain a lot of momentum here," said Mark Little, a principal in the Honolulu office of design firm Eight Inc. "The number of LEED projects are just exploding."

Recent growth locally in "green" construction has put the state in a respectable position nationally, with more LEED projects than 21 other states, according to the Green Building Council.

Hawai'i has 120 LEED projects registered or completed. While that pales in comparison with California as the leader in the nation at roughly 2,600 projects, Hawai'i still ranks high among states of similar population.

"Among its peers, Hawai'i is leading with a higher total of LEED projects," said Marie E. Coleman, a Green Building Council spokeswoman.

75 ELEMENTS AVAILABLE

The LEED program involves building with environmentally sustainable design and materials that include recycled products, reduced water use, renewable energy and natural lighting.

There are about 75 elements — from bicycle storage and changing rooms to wood produced under international sustainability standards — that help qualify a project for LEED designation.

Each feature earns a certain number of points that go toward one of four certification levels: certified, silver, gold and platinum.

The Green Building Council, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization, began the LEED program in 2000, and almost 18,000 planned projects have applied for certification, including new buildings and renovations. Of those, about 2,000 so far have been certified, which requires a review after construction is complete.

In Hawai'i, only 10 projects applied between 2001 and 2004. Last year marked the big jump with 40 projects seeking certification, up from 20 a year earlier. This year, interest remains strong with 42 new LEED applications through November.

Projects seeking certification include schools, hotels, office buildings, restaurants, libraries and homes.

Specific Hawai'i projects seeking LEED designation include the planned new USS Arizona Memorial Visitors Center, the 12,000-home master-planned 'Ewa community Ho'opili, Downtown Honolulu office tower 1132 Bishop and an expansion of Maui's Makena Resort.

Kim Kido, an executive committee member with the Sierra Club on O'ahu, said the proliferation of local LEED projects is commendable. "Our group is really excited to see how mainstream it has become," she said.

The first project certified in Hawai'i was a new Honolulu office for the American Institute of Architects in 2004. It's only one of 10 Hawai'i projects certified to date, though that number is expected to grow dramatically as LEED projects under construction are completed and reviewed.

Much of LEED's growth locally has been from government construction in the past two years after a state law was enacted in 2006 requiring LEED certification for new state buildings 5,000 square feet or bigger unless circumstances make certification impossible. A similar ordinance passed the same year by the Honolulu City Council requires LEED certification for new city buildings.

The regulations, which are similar to laws in several other states and municipalities, have led to LEED applications for the planned University of Hawai'i-West O'ahu, a Maui Community College science building and public libraries in Kohala and Manoa. At least 20 of the 120 LEED projects in Hawai'i are government buildings.

Many private developers also have embraced the program, and say that in the past couple of years it has become significantly easier and less costly to achieve certification.

Punahou School was one of the early private testers of LEED in Hawai'i when it developed the nine-building Case Middle School completed in 2004 on its campus.

The project, which received LEED's second-highest certification, features self-regulating lights, waterless urinals, photovoltaic power, landscape irrigation drawn from a natural spring and air-conditioning that uses cheaper off-peak electricity at night to make ice that cools buildings.

About 25 percent of the project contains recycled materials, including carpets and paint. Student lockers are made from recycled milk cartons.

Randy Overton, director of Punahou's physical plant, said the middle school uses 46 percent less energy, and that a 5 percent to 7 percent cost premium for LEED features is expected to pay for itself in seven or eight years.

"We've been real pleased with how the buildings have performed," he said.

The project, which draws 5 percent of its electricity from renewable energy, has led to another Punahou LEED project, a five-building complex for kindergarten and 1st-grade students that's scheduled for construction early next year and aims to derive 50 percent of its electricity from major photovoltaics and a small wind turbine.

The expected cost premium for the new project, Overton said, is estimated at 2 percent to 3 percent and should pay off in less than seven years because of greater energy savings and green-building materials that cost less because of more competitive suppliers.

Little, the Eight Inc. principal, said a few years ago it might have cost 10 percent to 15 percent more to produce a high-level LEED certified building, but 1 percent to 5 percent is a typical premium today because of competition among suppliers of everything from recycled carpet to low-emission adhesives and sealants. For the lowest-level LEED certification, it's possible to avoid any extra cost, Little and some builders said.

"LEED is being much more of the way people build now," he said. "It's not something that is seen as being difficult to achieve."

IT'S CHEAPER, HEALTHIER

As more developers produce LEED buildings, tenants are getting interested in the benefits such as lower energy costs and healthier environments.

One instance of that is 280 Beach Walk, an Eight Inc.-designed retail complex under construction in Waikiki applying for LEED certification. Anchor tenant Hard Rock Cafe decided to make its interior space LEED certified.

Little said leasing the space gains an advantage over competing retail space because of the ability to pass along energy savings to tenants. "It's a bit of a marketing tool," he said.

Still, it can be tough to persuade clients building a home or commercial project to pay extra for LEED features despite the promise of future savings and environmental benefits.

"People don't quite understand what it all means," said Scott Inatsuka, chairman of the year-old Hawai'i chapter of the Green Building Council. "The perception of 'green' is still sometimes derogatory — oh, you're just a bunch of tree-huggers ... I don't want my cabinets made of recycled plastic bottles — that's the perception out there."

Inatsuka, who heads the local office of international engineering consultancy Lincolne Scott, said one industry study revealed that people considered products made with recycled materials to be of inferior quality. So despite more consumers with strong environmental consciences demanding eco-friendly products, it remains challenging to produce LEED buildings.

Consider what happened to what was touted as the most environmentally friendly home ever built in Hawai'i:

Towne Development of Hawai'i last year built a four-bedroom Maui house dubbed "The Good Home" that qualified for LEED's second-highest rating. It was mainly a demonstration project to educate subcontractors and provide lessons to benefit future Towne projects.

But despite the home's "green" selling points, property records show that Towne sold the 2,600-square-foot house in October for $1.35 million, which was almost half the $2.5 million list price that already was below what it cost Towne to produce the home.

Shane Jackson, Towne's environmental projects director, said the project was a success because it showcased LEED elements for other builders and the public during a 9-month open house. But the sale result also demonstrated that it can be tough to produce an environmentally and economically friendly home in Hawai'i.

Mike Fairall, a custom-home builder based in Kailua, believes this doesn't have to be the case.

For the past three years, the owner of Mokulua Woodworking Ltd. has been building homes mostly with environmentally sustainable features without LEED certification, but is now working with a Hawai'i Kai property owner and a LEED consultant to build a mid-priced LEED home for $350,000 to $400,000.

Fairall said he's convinced he can obtain LEED certification for equal to or less than what it would cost for a similar home with no environmentally friendly features.

"The perception is it's so expensive to do," he said. "The idea is to show Hawai'i and the nation you don't need a big budget to do a LEED-certified home."

More projects that can demonstrate affordability in LEED could help make it easier to mandate LEED standards through the building code or county ordinance.

A handful of Mainland municipalities, including Long Beach, Calif., Boston and Baltimore, have mandated LEED certification for private projects of certain sizes. Other municipalities have created incentives that include density bonuses and property tax exemptions for LEED projects.

On O'ahu, the City Council in 2004 provided a one-year property tax exemption for new LEED-certified commercial projects. But in February, the council shelved a bill introduced last year that would have required all new buildings to obtain minimum LEED certification beginning in 2010.

Some developers and homebuilders testified against the bill, calling it too onerous and instead suggested incentives be created for LEED projects.

Little of Eight Inc. hopes the bill is revived and passes. "There's really no reason not to do it," he said. "It's becoming the norm."