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The purpose of this paper is to identify the characteristics of green building guidelines in developed countries and to analyze their influence on the evolution and adoption of similar guidelines in India.

This research reviews the green building guidelines in the developed as well as the developing countries such as Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design guidelines for new construction (LEED^® NC‐USA), Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM)‐UK, Comprehensive Assessment System for Building Environmental Efficiency (CASBEE)‐Japan, and LEED^®‐India and further performs a comparative analysis of these guidelines.

Based on the comparative analysis of LEED^® NC‐USA, BREEAM‐UK, and CASBEE‐Japan, the characteristics that might have affected their current acceptance were identified. The catalysts and hindrances associated with the acceptance of LEED‐India in India were identified based on the comparative analysis of LEED^® NC‐USA and LEED^®‐India.

With an exponential growth of construction industry in the rapidly developing countries, there is a definite need to promote the adoption of green building guidelines. The methodology adopted in this research can be applied to understand the evolution as well as future adoption of green building guidelines in other countries that are facing similar circumstances.

We study ceremonial adoption of voluntary standards, where participants adopt the standard in principle but do not change their practices. Ceremonial adoption can benefit individual participants, who may be able to reap the benefits of association with the standard at lower cost, but it can be problematic for overall levels of adoption. We conceive of ceremonial adoption as an interaction between strategic incentives of participants and social ties to their audiences, such that not all participants are likely to ceremonially adopt. Our setting is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification for sustainable construction. We study the conditions under which projects register for LEED certification, allowing them to claim affiliation with LEED, but then do not actually finish certification. While our data are correlational in nature, our results suggest that studying the competition for audience members (in our case, occupants) can provide greater understanding of certification behavior as well as overall levels of adoption. Our findings have implications for organizations that design and maintain voluntary standards and for organization theorists who wish to understand field-level change. Thus, we provide more evidence that strategy and organizational theory interact in important and often unexamined ways.

Schools should be adequately built and operated to protect students' health. Green building rating systems, including Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), assist the construction industry in improving both the resource efficiency and indoor environmental quality of its buildings. Construction professionals may waive some green modifications and available optional credits due to their high costs or construction complexities. This study investigates whether cost-effective green modifications can adequately address the student health.

In an effort to identify how school projects in Dubai, UAE prioritized LEED credits related to occupant well-being, the study identified eight LEED credits (called “Health and wellbeing” credits). Cost data from a sample of nine Dubai schools were used to develop an indicator, named the Feasibility Index Score (FIS), to quantify the attractiveness of LEED credits based on their cost and implementation complexity. Physical measurements taken from the sample schools give a window into current indoor environmental quality (IEQ) conditions of schools in the local region, while FIS provides insight into potential financial barriers towards improving these conditions.

The authors identified eight “Health and wellbeing” credits, which may net up to 14 points or 13% of all possible LEED points. Despite this, assessments of the sample schools revealed that six of the “Health and wellbeing” credits exhibited relatively low FIS values. This may cause these credits to be waived when lower tiers of LEED certifications are desired.

A sample of nine schools was chosen for this research; further investigation using a greater sample size is recommended.

The paper's IEQ assessment indicates the importance of health-related credits and suggests implementing them regardless of their FIS.

This paper recognizes the importance of providing more weight to credits that directly impact the health of occupants, particularly when upgrading existing structures.

This study aims to develop a web-based tool – LEED Energy Performance Online Submission Tool (LEPOST) to reduce the submission cost of the leadership in energy and environmental design (LEED) application process and facilitate green building design. Lifecycle cost reduction is a major driver for designing green buildings. LEED rating system has been well recognised and widely used in the green building industry. However, certification cost incurred in time and money is often a deterrent for some projects.

LEPOST automatically maps EnergyPlus and eQUEST energy simulation results to the LEED energy performance requirement submission templates using an extensible markup language (XML) data structure. It incorporates the Energy Star Target Finder online engine and current utility data to calculate points required to assess LEED Energy and Atmosphere Prerequisite 2 and Credit 1 automatically.

A comparative case study is conducted using an office building project. The study results show that the tool can reduce the amount of time for the LEED energy performance evaluation and submission process from more than 6 hours to 2 minutes. The total number of manual data entries is reduced from 442 to 20.

Future work includes the update to support LEED V4, the development of a parametric design function that can help design teams perform design alternatives to evaluate energy performance with minimum effort, and the integration with the LEED Online system.

The use of the tool by the building industry may decrease the cost of LEED certification for building owners, developers and design teams by simplifying the submission process.

The overall development framework of LEPOST contributes to the knowledge of the data interoperability in the building sector by demonstrating a viable solution to extract and map digital model information for achieving code and standard compliance purposes.

The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between environmental factors and building energy consumption of three Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)-certified buildings at the Arizona State University, by establishing the relationships of the outside atmospheric temperature and the energy consumed in the building using real-time data generated from different sources.

K-means clustering analysis is used to calibrate and eliminate unwanted influences or factors from a set of building consumption real-time data. For further statistical analysis, the chi-square is used to verify if the results are ample to prove the findings.

Few studies have addressed building energy consumption real-time data versus LEED Energy and Atmosphere (EA) credits with the data mining technique (k-means clustering) on most of building performance analyses. This study highlighted that the calibrating energy data are a better approach to analyze energy use in buildings and that there is a relationship between LEED credits’ (EA) Optimize Energy Performance scores and building energy efficiency. However, the energy consumption data alone do not yield useful results to establish the cause and effect relationships.

Although there are several previous research studies regarding LEED building energy performance, this research study focused on the LEED building energy performance versus LEED EA credits versus environmental factors using real-time building energy data and various statistical methods (e.g. K-means clustering and chi-square). The findings provide researchers, engineers and architects with valuable references for building energy analysis methods and supplements in LEED standards.

The purpose of this paper is to create and present a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design New Construction (LEED NC) building performance assessment model that will identify and prioritize external parameters affecting a LEED-certified building’s operational performance.

The uncertainty associated with external parameters affecting a LEED-certified building’s operational performance is examined through the use of analytic network process (ANP). An ANP model is created based on the extensive literature research and experiences of professionals in the green building industry. Eight case studies are analyzed, and data collected through interviews with experts are utilized in prioritizing external parameters affecting buildings’ operational performance.

The findings show that the most important external parameters affecting a LEED-certified building’s operational performance are lack of enhanced commissioning, lack of life cycle assessment/life cycle costing analysis, lack of energy modeling, and lack of knowledge in green technology. The results demonstrate that both asset value and profit, as well as the economic life of the facility, are mostly affected by the energy efficiency of the building, and consequently LEED NC energy and atmosphere category.

This research contributes to the body of knowledge on green architecture by defining and prioritizing external parameters and their relationships to operational building performance in LEED NC projects. The proposed model can be used by construction managers and facility managers to operate LEED-certified buildings better and reduce environmental impacts throughout the functional life cycle of the building.

The researchers analyzed factors affecting the adoption of the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green-building certification system in Jordan, including financial performance of certified projects along with broader barriers that may impact developers’ interest in LEED.

The authors first reviewed online data for all LEED registered and certified projects in Jordan, recruited LEED-certified project stakeholders, collected documents related to LEED projects and conducted LEED category credit summaries, financial cost-benefit analyses and spot-checking reported values in local markets. The authors then visited projects sites and interviewed various project stakeholders to understand better stakeholders' decision-making processes concerning LEED and relevant factors (financial, branding, cultural, political, etc.).

Obtaining LEED certification in Jordan was financially feasible as evinced in both the quantitative analysis and interviews. However, the authors found that there was very limited interest in LEED among Jordanian developers. Barriers included widespread cynicism toward green building concepts as well as a lack of local expertise in installing and maintaining green technologies. To overcome these barriers, the authors recommend that green building initiatives place a greater emphasis on education and public-promotion activities.

The research data were limited to projects that had successfully achieved LEED certification. Broader qualitative research conducted across the Jordanian building community could provide additional insights, but such an investigation is beyond the scope of the current study.

The complexity of adapting a Western green building standard (LEED) to a non-Western context is discussed in detail. The findings suggest that understanding regional development challenges, local markets and cultural differences is vital for successfully implementing green building certification systems.

Traditional management systems sometimes struggle to meet the unique demands of Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) projects. Consequently, contractors have to modify their management practices. The purpose of this paper is to explore the management practices necessary to achieve successful implementation of LEED projects.

LEED project management practices implemented by six US contractors from the Top 100 Green Contractors list published by the Engineering News and Record, were analysed using structured case study interviews. An additional case study probed management practices implemented on a LEED‐GOLD project.

Findings support the implementation of management practices classified using the six Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award criteria of leadership, strategic planning, customer focus, measurement, analysis and knowledge management, workforce focus and operation focus.

The qualitative study was based on a limited number of participant organizations. A subsequent quantitative study might provide generalizeable metrics for the green building industry. Further research on the cost effectiveness of the identified management practices is recommended.

This study provides an intuitive framework in the form of discourse on management practices to enhance the success of LEED projects. Contractors may consider the study's recommendations in order to increase their success on such projects.

The need to harmonize management practices with sustainable development has sparked the interest of researchers and practitioners. The study should be of utility to LEED contractors, environmental agencies, governments, educators, and other relevant stakeholders.

Literature review indicates that Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design – Accredited Professionals (LEED APs) practicing during the first ten years of LEED in the building industry hold perceptions that have influenced the adoption of LEED. These perceptions may include that some LEED credit points are more difficult to obtain than others, LEED projects have higher first costs, and LEED projects have higher levels of complexity. The literature also indicates that the relationship between these three topics merits research attention, in an effort to discover the magnitude of those perceptions. This paper aims to address these issues.

Both self‐administered questionnaires and interviews are utilized to secure information directly from practitioners. Out of a pool of 8,000 possible interviewees, a total of 102 qualified respondents participated in the cross‐sectional survey. Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software is used to analyze the data derived from the survey information and to arrive at conclusions.

The survey identify which LEED credit points are perceived by LEED APs as more difficult, as contributing to higher initial costs and as increasing project complexity. The conclusions indicate a trend toward a higher adoption rate of points that are perceived as having lower initial costs and a lower level of complexity. These findings are primarily due to two reasons: increased cost in managing project documentation; and increased cost in project complexity.

The results of this study can be used by designers, construction professionals, and facility managers who are involved in new construction projects. The trends in credit point adoption, and the professionals' perceptions of their initial cost and level of complexity, may encourage others to consider using systems that introduce sustainability concepts into their design and construction process.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the notion of sustainability and research reporting price premiums for LEED‐certified buildings.

This paper explores the notion of sustainability and research reporting price premiums for LEED‐certified buildings. The durability of certification levels is explored by converting projects developed under the initial NC2‐series system to a new vintage rating adopted in 2009. This conversion is made by applying Lagrangian multipliers to model stochastic impacts.

The study reveals that 18 percent of 591 projects developed under the NC2‐Series were “misclassified” in terms of certification levels when converted to new NCv2009 standards. To the extent the market has pursued LEED certification levels, the unanticipated changes may have led to the adoption short‐term solutions that are inappropriate due to the long‐term nature of real estate assets.

Given the complexity of the LEED rating system, it is unknown how the market will react to the lack of durability and approach pricing over the long‐term.

The results indicate market participants should adopt a proactive approach to LEED certification.

The study identifies significant dynamics in the LEED certification system for new construction and behavioural responses that have not been reported in the literature.