Green Buildings: Principles, Practices and Techniques, The French "HQE" Versus the American "LEED"

Abstract

Buildings account for a large amount of land use, energy and water consumption, in addition to air and atmosphere alteration. Considering the statistics and the impact of the built environment on human health as well as the natural environment, reducing the amount of natural resources consumed by the buildings industry and the amount of pollution given off is seen as critical to achieve sustainability. Green Buildings are expected to reduce greenhouse gasses, save the natural resources and meet the users’ justifiable demand for more comfort and safety; in addition to their promising projected value within the global economy. Within the international framework and assessment tools designed to address the buildings environmental issues, this paper aims to outline and compare two of the world’s leading standards for Green Buildings, the French “HQE®” and the American “LEED®” assessment systems in order to reveal the differences as well as the common ground and the shared concerns of both systems. A set of environmental issues were selected in such a way to cover the three aspects of the building’s sustainability. The findings of the comparison show an advantage for the French system in addition to its innovative extension of the concept to the urban planning operations.