Abstract:
The matter of environmental concern prioritization integrated into globally used green building rating
systems is a fundamental issue since it determines how the performance of a structure or development is
reflected. Certain nationally-developed certification systems are used globally without being subjected to
adjustments with respect to local geographical, cultural, economic and social parameters. This may lead
to a situation where the results of an evaluation may not reflect the reality of the region and/or the site of
construction. The main objective of this paper is to examine and underline the problems regarding the
issue of weighting environmental concerns in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
(LEED) certification system, which is a US-originated but globally used assessment tool. The methodology
of this study consists of; (i) an analysis of the approach of LEED in the New Construction and Major
Renovations scheme in version 3 (LEED NC, v.3) and the Building Design and Construction scheme in
version 4 (LEED BD þ C, v.4), (ii) case studies in which regional priority credits (RPCs) set by LEED for four
countries (Canada, Turkey, China and Egypt) are criticized with respect to countries’ own local conditions,
and, (iii) an analysis of the approaches of major environmental assessment tools, namely; BREEAM,
SBTool, CASBEE and Green Star, in comparison to the approach in LEED, regarding the main issue of this
paper. This work shows that, even in its latest version (v.4) LEED still displays some inadequacies and
inconsistencies from the aspect of environmental concern prioritization and has not yet managed to
incorporate a system which is more sensitive to this issue. This paper further outlines the differences and
similarities between the approaches of the aforementioned major environmental assessment tools with
respect to the issue of concern and the factors that should be integrated into future versions of LEED.