A comparison study of mainstream sustainable/green

building rating tools in the world

Mao Xiaoping
Dept. Construction Management &
Real Estate, Southeast University
Nanjing, P.R.China,210096
mxpok2004@vip.sina.com
Lu Huimin
Dept. Construction Management &
Real Estate, Southeast University
Nanjing, P.R.China,210096
luhuiminseu@gmail.com
Li Qiming
Dept. Construction Management &
Real Estate, Southeast University
Nanjing, P.R.China,210096
njlqming@163.com

Abstract: Sustainable construction movement has been deeply
transforming the traditional construction sector. As an important part
of the sustainable construction delivery system, sustainable/green
building rating tools play an essential role in implementing the
sustainable principles into the construction industry. This paper makes
detailed description and comparison among the six mainstream green
building assessment tools, including LEED, BREEAM, SBTool,
CASBEE, BCA-GM, and ESGB. A short discussion about these
sustainable/green building assessment tools has been made, and also
briefly points out the importance and urgency of the sustainable
construction development based on Chinese context.
key words: sustainble construction; green building; rating tools;
assessment; comparison.
I. INTRODUCTION
The concept of sustainable development can be traced to
the energy (especially fossil oil) crisis and the environment
pollution concern in the 1970s. The Rachel Carson’s book
Silent Spring is considered as one of the first initial efforts to
describe this topic. The classical definition of sustainable
development was defined in the Broundland’s Report 1987 as
“a development that meets the needs of the present without
compromising the ability of future generations to meet their
own needs”. The pursuit of sustainable development throws the
build environment and the construction industry into sharp
relief (CIB 1999). An unprecedented sustainable construction
movement is reshaping the conventional construction sector
around in all aspects including planning/programming, design,
construction, operation/maintenance, modification/renovation,
demolition/deconstruction, financing, insurance, policy,
marketing, management, etc.
The first definition of sustainable construction was
proposed by Kibert as “…creating and operating a healthy built
environment based on resource efficiency and ecological
design” in the proceedings of the first international conference
of CIB task group 16 on sustainable construction which was
held in Tampa, Florida (Kibert 1994). In the past 15 years,
sustainable construction was approached in various ways and
with different priority in different countries. There are several
terms about this topic, such as green building, sustainable
building, sustainable construction, high performance building,
and so on, and these terms are often used interchangeably. In
fact, there are essential differences in these terms. Sustainable
construction most comprehensively addressed the ecological,
social, and economic issues of a building in the context of its
community (Kibert 2007). Sustainable/green buildings can be
defined as the facilities which are the outcomes of sustainable
construction for the purpose of promoting occupant health and
resource efficiency, minimizing the impacts of the built
environment on the natural ecology system. In the opinion of
Kibert, sustainable/green building is a subset of sustainable
construction, representing simply the structure (Kibert 2004).
At the present, the sustainable construction movement is
growing at an explosive rate in many countries around the
world. As a part of the sustainable/green building delivery
system, a series of sustainable/green building assessment tools
have been developed by some national or international research
organizations. The purposes of the majority rating tools are:
(1) assessing the performance of the outcomes of the
sustainable construction, (2) guiding the entire process of the
sustainable construction to reach the three pillars of
sustainability (economic growth, ecological balance, social
progress and equity), (3) accelerating the evolution and
transformation of the traditional construction industry. The
typical green building assessment tools include LEED
(Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), BREEAM
(Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment
Method), SBTool (Sustainable Building Tool), CASBEE
(Comprehensive Assessment System for Building Environment
Efficiency), Green Globes, Green Calc, Ecoprofile, HK-BEAM
(Hong Kong Building Environment Assessment Method),
BCA-GM (Building and Construction Authority Green Mark,
Singapore), Green Star, NABERS (National Australian
Building Environment Rating System), GOBAS (Green
Olympic Building Assessment System, China), ESGB
(Evaluation Standard for Green Building: GB/T 50378-2006,
China).
In this paper, the comparison of several mainstream
sustainable assessment tools including LEED, BREEAM,
SBTool, CASBEE, BCA-GM, and ESGB highlights the
similarities and differences among these tools based on
different regions respectively.
II. DESCRIPTION OF THE MAINSTREAM RATING TOOLS
A. LEED
The LEED rating system was established by the United
State Green Building Council (USGBC), which is the primarily
green building organization in the US, as a voluntary rating
system to evaluate the environment performance of a building

978-1-4244-4639-1/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE

over almost the entire life cycle. The first version of LEED
(V1.0) was released in the 1998, and the second one (V 2.0)
was formally published in the year of 2000. After the
appearance of the LEED V2.0, a persisted improvement and
extension have been made in this version by the USGBC, and
we can call this version as LEED V2.x. As the announcement
of the USGBC, the third vision of the LEED (V3.0) will be
launched on April 27, 2009, and the latest vision will include
three major enhancements to the LEED rating system:
harmonization, credit weightings, and regionalization
(http://www.usgbc.org 2009).
LEED is considered as one of the most successful green
building rating system in the world especially for its strong
market penetration. As the statistical data released by the
USGBC, the numbers of both LEED-registered and LEED-
certified projects doubled in 2008-from about 10,000 registered
projects at the end of 2007 up to more than 20,000 by the end
of January 2009, while square footage of LEED-certified
construction rose 92% during that time period, from 148
million up to 284 million square feet (http://www.usgbc.org
2009).
Although the LEED V3.0 has the larger advance than the
old one, the most prevalent version in the present market is the
LEED V2.x, which contains the LEED for NC-V2.2 (New
Construction), EB-V2.0 (Existing Buildings), CI-V2.0
(Commercial Interiors), C&S -V2.0 (Core & Shell), School,
Healthcare, Retail, Neighborhood Development, and Homes.
For encouraging excellent achievement in the green building
area, projects that have been awarded LEED platinum
certification will receive a rebate for all certification fees. In
this paper, the LEED V2.x will be involved in the comparison.
B. BREEAM
The BREEAM was developed in 1990 by the Building
Research Establishment (BRE) in the UK. The BRE is owed by
the foundation for the Built Environment, a registered charity
in the UK, and it provides a range of consultancy, testing, and
commission research services for all aspects of the built
environment (Bunz, Henze, et al. 2006).
BREEAM is the first really meaningful green building
assessment tool in the world, and it is also the widely used
environmental assessment method for buildings. It sets the
standard for best practice in sustainable design and has become
the de facto measure used to describe a building’s
environmental performance (http://www.breeam.org 2009).
There are over 110,000 buildings certified and over half a
million registered for certification up to now.
BREEAM 2008 goes beyond the remit of the standard
biennial update and includes major step changes: (1) a new two
stage assessment process: design stage and post construction,
(2) Introduction of mandatory credits. The BREEAM 2008
family contains BREEAM for Offices, Retail, Industry Units,
Courts, Education, Healthcare, Prisons, Eco Homes for
residential assessment (the latest version is Eco Homes-2006),
and Bespoke BREEAM For unusual building types. BREEAM
2008 (Eco Homes-2006) will be analyzed in the comparison.
C. SBTool
SBTool, formerly called as GBTool, is designed to assess
the environmental and sustainable performance of buildings.
SBTool is the predominant outcome of the Green Building
Challenge (GBC) process that has been under development
since 1996 by a group of more than a dozen teams from various
countries. The GBC process was launched by Natural
Resources Canada, but responsibility was handed over to the
International Initiative for a Sustainable Built Environment
(iiSBE) in 2002 (http://www.iisbe.org 2009).
The former version of SBTool is GBTool, which is
designed to allow users to reflect the different priorities,
technologies, building traditions, and cultural value that exist in
various regions and countries in the assessment process. The
GBTool includes of a Microsoft Excel workbook that is
configured to suit almost any local condition or build type. The
very important feather is that the GBTool is a rating framework
or toolbox and only becomes an efficient rating tool after a
third party calibrates it for their region by defining scope and
setting weights, context and performance benchmarks (Nils
Larsson 2007). In 2007, the iiSBE developed an updated
version called as SBTool reflecting the inclusion of a range of
socio-economic variables. Compared with GBTool, SBTool
pays more attention to the issues about social/economic
considerations and urban / planning.
SBTool or GBTool has been used in many counties and
regions, such as Canada, USA, German, Poland, China (main
land), Hong Kong (China), Taiwan (China), Spain, and so on.
In this paper, SBTool is chosen to make comparison with the
other sustainable/green building rating tools.
D. CASBEE
Japan is the zealous participant of the Green Building
Challenge process, and the development of CASBEE has been
deeply influenced by the GBTool. The CASBEE is a joint
governmental, academic, and industrial building assessment
project underway in Japan, and the main R&D institute of the
CASBEE is the JaGBC (Japan Green Build Council) and its
subcommittees. Different from the other green building
assessment methods, the CASBEE adopts the value of BEE
(Building Environmental Efficiency) to evaluate the
sustainability of the green building. The definition of BEE used
in CASBEE can be illustrated by the equation below.
BEE = (Building environmental quality and performance) /
(building environmental loadings)
Since the establishment of JaGBC in 2001, four basic tools
were developed or underdeveloped to cover the entire life cycle
of the buildings, which are CASBEE for Pre-design
(underdevelopment, tool-0), New Construction (tool-1),
Existing Building (tool-2), and Renovation (tool-3). The other
tools have been derived from these four basic tools for specific
purposes, including the CASBEE for New Construction (Brief
version), Temporary Construction, Heat Island, Urban
Development, Urban Area+Buildings, Home (Detached House)
(http://www.ibec.or.jp/CASBEE 2009). CASBEE has been
proved as an effective assessment tool tailored for the special
condition of Japan, and many local governments encourage the
owners or developers to apply the CASBEE certification.
E. BCA-GM
The BCA Green Mark Scheme was launched in January
2005 as an initiative to move Singapore’s construction industry
towards more environment-friendly buildings. It is endorsed
and supported by the National Environment Agency. The
BCA-GM provides a comprehensive framework for assessing
building performance and environmental friendliness.
BCA Green Mark has assessment criteria for two main
categories: New Buildings (NB) and Existing Buildings (EB).
BCA-GM Criteria for New Buildings is sub-divided into two
categories namely: BCA-GM for Non-Residential Buildings
(Latest Version 3.0), BCA-GM for Residential Buildings
(Latest Version 3.0). Government has set aside $20 million for
Green Mark Incentive Scheme (GMIS) on 15 December 2006
for a period of 3 years. The enhanced scheme offers cash
incentives to developers, building owners, and the other actors
who make efforts to achieve at least a BCA Green Mark Gold
rating or higher in the design and construction of new buildings
or major retrofitting of existing buildings
(http://www.bca.gov.sg/GreenMark 2009).
F. ESGB
In 2006, Evaluation Standard for Green Building (GB/T
50378-2006, China) was promulgated by the Ministry of
Housing and Urban-Rural Development of the People’s
Republic of China (MOHURD), and several research institutes
and universities which included China Academy of Building
Research (CABR), Tsinghua University, etc. participated in the
design and compilation of the ESGB. The China government
has made the ESGB become a national standard, named as
GB/T 50378-2006.
Before the emergence of ESGB, there are two relevant
green building assessment tools in China (mainland). The one
is the Guideline of China Ecological Residence Technology
Assessment (GCERTA), developed by the China Real Estate
Chamber of Commerce, Tsinghua University, etc. in the year
of 2001. GCERTA has been usually used by the real estate
developer, and its influence is limited in the national level.
The other is the Green Olympic Building Assessment System
(GOBAS), which is a guideline to promote the sustainable
construction of Beijing’s Olympic buildings. The assessment
method of GOBAS is definitely based on CASBEE.
In 2007, the labeling system of ESGB was launched and
ESGB rating system formally began to run. For encouraging
the development of green buildings in china, the MOHURD
has set a prize to offers cash and honor incentives to the
predominant developer, designer, and the other participants
who involving in the innovation of the sustainable construction.
Actually, the ESGB is a “one size fits all” assessment tool
up to now. As announced in this standard, ESGB can be used
in the majority building types containing residences, offices,
hotels, commercial buildings. Differencing from the other
rating tools, the ESGB was constituted with six issues, and
every issue contains three item types including controlling
items, common items, and priority items. The controlling items
are the prerequisites for the applicants. The applicants will be
ranked into three levels, depending on how many common
items and priority items have been satisfied.
III. COMPARISON OF THE MAINSTREAM RATING TOOLS
The comparison table, table 1, demonstrates the detailed
similarities and differences among these sustainable/green
assessment tools.
A. The similarities in the rating tools
The similarities in these green building rating tools can be
concluded below.
• There is a reasonable relationship among these rating
tools. BREEAM, considered as the first real green
building rating tool in the world, is the foundation of
the development of the others. The LEED and
SBtool/GBTool have been deeply influenced by the
BREEAM. The new assessment tools such as
CASBEE, BCA-GM, ESGB, etc. can be considered as
the derivations of the BREEAM, LEED, and
SBtool/GBTool. The figure 1 may clearly illustrate
their relationships.
BCA-GM ESGB CASBEE
LEED SBTool/GBTool
BREEAM
Direct influence
Indirect influence
Figure 1. The mainstream green building rating tools’ relationships
• In the structure of the assessment systems, all rating
tools are focused on the life cycle assessment, which
covers the stages of programming, design, construction,
operation. Simultaneously, except CASBEE, most of
them have been ignored the stage of demolition or
deconstruction, which is the key stage to close the loop
of material system. Most of these rating tools rarely
contain the criteria about disassemble design and
construction.
• Except ESGB and SBTool, all the providers of these
assessment systems have launched the accredited
professional schemes. The accredited professional
scheme is the key to promote the implement of these
tools, and rapid the market acceptance of these tools.
The accredited professional scheme of ESGB is also
under the way to outset.
• In the content of these guidelines, all of them include
the issues of Water & Energy Efficiency, Materials &
Resources, and Indoor Environmental Quality (IEQ).
This reflects most of the relevant countries have been
aware of the problems of Water, Energy, Materials &
Resources, and IEQ.
• The labeling systems of the sustainable/green building
have been developed by all the organizations which
create these rating tools. The labeling system is an
enabler to push the increasing number of the owners,
 TABLE I. THE COMPARISON TABLE OF MAINSREAM SUSTAINABLE/GEEEN BUILDING RATING TOOLS

The mainstream sustainable/green building rating tools

Comparison items
LEED BREEAM SBTool CASBEE BCA-GM ESGB
Version V2.x BREEAM-2008 SBTool-2007 Update to 2008 V3.0 ESGB-2006
Organizations iiSBE (international JaGBC (joint of BCA (dominated by MHURD(dominated
USGBC(non-profit BRE(non-profit
providing rating non-profit government, national by national
third party) third party)
tools collaboration) industry, academy) government) government)
Moderate market-
Fully market- Fully market- Moderate market- Low market-
orientated and
orientated and orientated and Moderate market- orientated and high orientated and high
Market-orientated moderate
strong market strong market orientated government government
government
penetration penetration involvement dominating
involvement
Depending on local Certified Green
Accredited third part, and iiSBE Mark Manager &
LEED AP BREEAM AP CASBEE AP null
professional provides skill and Green Mark
education supports Professional
Increasing Increasing Increasing
Increasing
flexibility in USA, flexibility in UK, flexibility in Japan, Low flexibility and
High flexibility flexibility in
Flexibility and relative and relative and relative low more improvement
around the world Singapore, and only
moderate flexibility moderate flexibility flexibility in the required
focus on native field
in the overseas in the overseas overseas
Residence, office,
Residence,
Residence, school, retail, industry unit,
temporary
retail, commercial court, education, residence, office,
Usage domains Almost any type of construction, heat Residential and non-
building, multi- healthcare, prison, hotel, commercial
(building types) the building island, multi- residential building
function building, unusual building building
function building,
healthcare type, multi-function
etc.
building
Energy Efficiency,
Site Selection, Building
Water Efficiency,
Project Planning environmental
Indoor
Management, and Development, quality issues: Land saving &
Sustainable sites, Environmental
Energy, Transport, Energy and Indoor Outdoor
Water Efficiency, Quality, (all
Pollution, Materials, Resource Environment, Environment, Energy
Energy & included by NB and
Water, Land Use Consumption, Quality of Service, saving and usage,
Atmosphere, EB); Environmental
and Ecology, Health Environmental Outdoor Water saving and
Assessment issues Materials & Protection, Other
and Wellbeing, Loadings, Indoor Environment on usage, Material
Resources, Indoor Green
Pollution (Eco Environmental Site; saving and usage,
Environmental Features(Special for
Homes only Quality, Service Environmental Indoor Environment
Quality, Innovation NB); Building
contains the former Quality, Social and Load issues: Quality, Operational
& Design process Management &
eight issues) Economic aspects, Energy, Resources Management
Operation,
Cultural and & Materials, Off-
Innovation(Special
Perceptual Aspects site Environment
for EB)
Programming (Tool-
Programming, Programming, Programming, Programming,
Life cycle coverage 0, Programming,
Design, Design, Design, Design,
underdevelopment), Design, Construction,
(building phases) Construction, Construction, Construction, Construction,
Design, Operation, Operation
Operation Operation Operation Operation
Renovation
Yes ( the iiSBE
provides a default
Null ( LEED V3.0
weighting system,
Weighting system will contain a Yes Yes Null Null
and the regional
weighting system)
third parts can
develop a new one)
BEE=3.0 or NB:50-74
Total percentage of
Score: -1 more(Excellent), (Certified), 75-84 Depending on how
Total points: 69. credits achieved, for
(Deficient), 0 BEE=1.5~3.0 (Very (Gold), 85-89 many common items,
26-32 points example, Eco
(Minimum Good), (Goldplus), 90 and and priority items
Rating benchmarks (Certified), 33-38 Homes: 36%-47%
acceptable BEE=1.0~1.5 above (Platinum); have been satisfied,
and labeling points (Silver), 39- (Pass), 48%-57%
performance), +5 (Good), EB: 55-69 the participants will
systems 51 points (Gold), 52 (Good), 58%-69%
( Best practice), 1-4 BEE=0.5~1.0 (Certified), 70-79 be rewarded as three
or more points (Very good), 70%
(Intermediate (Fairy Poor), (Gold), 80-84 levels: one star, two
(Platinum) and more
performance level) BEE=less than 0.5 (Goldplus), 85 and stars, three stars
(Excellent).
(Poor) above (Platinum)
 developers to find the market value and potential of the
green/sustainable buildings.
B. The differences in the rating tools
Although there are several similarities in these green
building rating tools, the differences among them is also
significant.
• The cultural and political diversities between the East
and the West lead to the difference in the organizations
involving in the green building movement. The LEED,
SBTool, BREEAM are all established by non-profit
third party, while the CASBEE, BCA-GM, ESGB are
largely dominated by the government. Especially the
ESGB, Chinese national government has made it
become a national standard.
• In the aspect of market-orientated, the rating tools of
the developed countries always have been designed
according to the market acceptance, while the rating
tool of the developing country, ESGB, has low market
acceptance concerning. Even in the developed
countries, the market penetration of LEED and
BREEAM are higher than the others.
• Another difference is the flexibility of these tools. The
regionalism of the green building movement is one of
the prominent tendencies around the world. SBTool is
considered as the most flexible assessment tool, and it
greatly improves the green building regionalism.
• The weighting system is respectively included by
BREEAM, SBTool, CSABEE, While the LEED V2.x,
BCA-GM, ESGB have not the weighting systems. Like
a coin has two sides, the rating tools without the
weighting systems may simplify the rating process, and
benefit the market penetration, but they have been
criticized for lacking scientific evidences.
IV. DISCUSSION
The sustainable/green building assessment tools have
played an important role in the sustainable construction
delivery system, especially the LEED, SBTool, BREEAM
have achieved great success in several countries. Except for
measuring the performances of the green buildings, these rating
tools are also used as important communication tools to
enhance dialogue between different design team members and
broader groups of stakeholders (Cole, 2006).
As the applicants using these tools, an assumption in their
minds is that these rating tools have been embedded the
principles of sustainability. However, there are many
difficulties to assure that the process of green building
assessing really implements the three principles of
sustainability. As we all known, most of the assessment tools
are mainly concentrated on the environmental protection and
ecology balance. But, the other two principles, economy
growth and social progress & equity, are rarely addressed in
these assessment systems. Fortunately, more and more rating
tool providers have realized these problems, and have been
making constant improvement in this field. For example, the
iiSBE has revised the GBTool into SBTool, for adding more
assessment items about the economy growth and social
progress & equity.
China, as a largest developing country in the world, has
become a largest construction market in the world. The
Chinese national government estimates that more than half
construction activities in the world will be happened in China
in the next twenty years. Amount of construction activities lead
to the depletion of the natural resources and environmental
pollution. So, how to use the methods of sustainable
construction to reshape the conventional construction is a vital
problem we must solve. The emergence of the ESGB is an
essential reaction to promote the development of the
sustainable construction in China.
V. CONLUSIONS
From the comparison study of the mainstream rating tools,
the obvious similarities and differences have been identified in
this paper. All of these tools are highlighted in one terminal
objective, implementing the principles of sustainability. As an
important part of the sustainable construction delivery system,
these assessment tools are mapping an essential road to the
sustainability in the construction sector.
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