Green Building Rating Systems in India

In India, at present, there are predominantly two rating systems to certify buildings as green buildings, namely GRIHA and LEED-INDIA. These rating systems have a predefined set of criteria and there are points for each one of these criterion. The buildings are required to fulfill the defined criteria and achieve a certain number of points to be certified. 

GRIHA, an acronym for Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment, is the National Rating System of India. It has been conceived by TERI and developed jointly with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India. It is a green building 'design evaluation system', and is suitable for all kinds of buildings in different climatic zones of the country. 

It is a rating tool that helps people, assess the performance of their building against certain nationally acceptable benchmarks. It will evaluate the environmental performance of a building holistically over its entire life cycle, thereby providing a definitive standard for what constitutes a ‘green building’. The rating system, based on accepted energy and environmental principles, will seek to strike a balance between the established practices and emerging concepts, both national and international. The guidelines/criteria appraisal may be revised every three years to take into account the latest scientific developments during this period.

Going by the old adage ‘what gets measured, gets managed’, GRIHA attempts to quantify aspects such as energy consumption, waste generation, renewable energy adoption, etc. so as to manage, control and reduce the same to the best possible extent. 

LEED-INDIA is the Indian counterpart of United States Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design). It is led by the Indian Green Building Council (IGBC) in India.

The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED-INDIA) Green Building Rating System is a nationally and internationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. 

LEED-INDIA provides building owners, architects, consultants, developers, facility managers and project managers the tools they need to design, construct and operate green buildings. It promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in the following five key areas: Sustainable site development, Water savings, Energy efficiency, Materials selection and, Indoor environmental quality.

LEED-INDIA rating system provides a roadmap for measuring and documenting success for every building type and phase of a building lifecycle.

Specific LEED-INDIA programs include:

 LEED India for New Construction (LEED India NC)

 LEED India for Core and Shell (LEED India CS)