Comparison of Both Old and New Versions of the Evaluation Standard for Green Building in China with LEED in American

Abstract

At present, energy saving and emission reduction have become a central task for all countries and governments, and green building has become a research hot spot at the same time. Green building is the building which maximizes the conservation of resources, protection of the environment, and realization of coordinated unification between human and nature in the whole life cycle of the building. Green building is an important embodiment of sustainable development strategy. At the beginning of the 1990s, the concept of green building was introduced to China. In recent years, in order to promote the development of green building, China issued a series of related approaches and normative documents, such as Evaluation Standard for Green Building (GB/T50378-2006). Recently, in order to improve the green building standard, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Construction gives out the announcement, approving the Evaluation Standard for Green Building as the national standard, numbered GB/T50378-2014. The US Green Building Rating System (LEED) is now considered to be the most sophisticated and influential among all kinds of environmental protection assessments. In the revision of the Evaluation Standard for Green Building, certain aspects of LEED were consulted, so there is similarity between the two standards. But Evaluation Standard for Green Building also has its own characteristics based on China’s conditions. So this chapter pays attention to the comparison of the Evaluation Standard for Green Building (the latest revision), Evaluation Standard for Green Building (GB/T50378-2006), and US LEED standards. It uses the following eight aspects: evaluation phase, evaluation objects, index categories, refined indicators, scoring points, evaluation methods, evaluation results, and weight distribution to show the similarities and differences among the three standards. And it can point out the advantages and shortcomings of Evaluation Standard for Green Building in China and makes reasonable suggestions.