5. DESCRIPTION OF MAINSTREAM
RATING SYSTEMS
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 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.
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