U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED Green Building Rating System

LEED is a self-assessing system designed for rating new and existing commercial, institutional, and high-rise residential buildings. It evaluates environmental performance from a "whole building" perspective over a building's life cycle, providing a definitive standard for what constitutes a "green building." LEED is based on accepted energy and environmental principles and strikes a balance between known effective practices and emerging concepts. www.usgbc.org

Green Point Rated

GreenPoint Rated is geared toward residential projects not typically covered by LEED. GreenPoint Rated removes the guesswork from evaluating a home's green features. GreenPoint Rated rewards building professionals who create green homes by allowing them to brand their products with a recognizable, trustworthy seal of approval. Think of GreenPoint Rated as a report card for new home construction. A GreenPoint Rated home is graded on five categories:

• Energy Efficiency
• Resource Conservation
• Indoor Air Quality
• Water Conservation
• Community

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