Abstract The concept of green buildings has recently arisen in order to contribute to solving some environmental, energy and economic issues. To meet the green building requirements, this paper describes an integrated design approach to improve the energy and water efficiency of the mid-rise residential buildings in Jordan using the eQUEST energy simulation tool. The results show that savings of 77.9% in the annual requirements of electricity, 65.0% in the requirements of diesel oil and 19.5% in the indoor water consumption can be achieved. Finally, the Jordanian green building model had achieved 44 points in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design green building rating system and will have the ‘Certified’ classification.