International Refereed Journal of Engineering and Science (IRJES) ISSN (Online) 2319-183X, (Print) 2319-1821 Volume 3, Issue 5(May 2014), PP.53-64 www.irjes.org 53 | Page Rating Systems Awareness for Green Buildings Applications Dr.Dina Ahmed Elmeligy (Architecture engineering department, engineering Faculty, Tanta University, Egypt) Abstract :- Buildings have major environmental impacts over their entire life cycle. Thus, buildings are one of the major pollutants that affect urban air quality and contribute to climate change. Hence ,the need to design a green building is the essence of which would be to address all these issues in an integrated and scientific manner. Many official green building programs, communities and organizations launched several rating systems to help the sustainable process assessment; all of these rating systems are built in a way to adapt the idea of sustainability in architecture which seeks to minimize the negative environmental impact of buildings by enhancing efficiency in the use of materials, energy, and space. Hence ,this paper aims at clarifying and analyzing worldwide Green building rating systems such as; LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) in U.S.A, BREEM (Building Research Establishment‘s Environmental Assessment Method) in UK. , GBCA (The Green Building Council of Australia) in Australia, GRIHA (Green Rating for integrated Habitat assessment) in India and GPR (The Egyptian Green Building Council) in Egypt, By understanding their basic features and methodology to spread global awareness of importance of these organizations which have significant role in the process of assessing the sustainability criteria in buildings. Keywords: - Features, green buildings, methodology, rating systems. I. INTRODUCTION During the late 20th century, awareness of the impact of technology and the expanding human population on the earth increased. People started to expand their efforts to reduce their environmental impact and buildings started to be recognized as major contributors to the world‘s energy usage, landfill waste and diminishing green space[8]. It is critical to make the decision to build a green building early in the design process in order to maximize the green potential, minimize redesign, and assure the overall success and economic viability of the green elements of the building project [4].Therefore This paper focuses on different rating systems which evaluate sustainable design and construction off all types of buildings. Each selected system is described clearly and thoroughly, to be readily understandable to someone with no experience with the system[12]. II. GREEN BUILDING CONCEPT Green building practices are not new phenomena. A handful of buildings integrating environmental design aspects were erected as early as the late 19th and early 20th centuries [3]. A unified green design movement did not begin to emerge until the 1970s, when design and building practices first became a focus of environmental advocates [8]. Once the decision to build green has been made, one of the first steps in the green design process is to establish firm environmental goals for the project. it is important to set specific measurable goals for things like energy efficiency, water conservation, on-site treatment of rain water and storm water, material and resource management, construction waste management, and to assign responsibility for meeting these goals to specific members of the design team.