The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development recently issued an announcement approving the Green Building Evaluation Standard as a national standard, numbered GB/T50378-2014, effective from January 1, 2015. The original Green Building Evaluation Standard GB/T50378-2006 is simultaneously abolished. The standard was organized by the Standard and Quota Research Institute of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and published and distributed by China Architecture & Building Press.

The new edition of the Green Building Evaluation Standard has "stricter requirements and broader content" than the 2006 version. During the revision process, the standard summarized the practical experience and research results of green building evaluation in China in recent years, carried out a number of special studies and trial evaluations, drew on the experience of relevant advanced foreign standards, and extensively solicited opinions from relevant parties. The revised standard has an expanded scope of evaluation objects, clearer evaluation stages, more scientific and reasonable evaluation methods, and a more complete evaluation index system, and is innovative as a whole.

In the past, the green building evaluation standard had six major indicators. Under each indicator, meeting a certain number of items was sufficient to be rated as a one-star, two-star or three-star green building. However, during the trial operation of the above standard, many problems were found. The new standard instead adopts a scoring method: a total score of 45-50 points is one-star, 60 points is two-star, and 80 points is three-star. Items that review experts consider important are given 8 or 10 points; some, although necessary, are easy to implement and do not require much money, so they are given 4 points. As a result, many projects previously rated as one-star may no longer qualify, two-star projects may be downgraded to one-star, and three-star projects may be downgraded to two-star or one-star.

In the Green Building Action Plan forwarded by the General Office of the State Council in early 2013 by the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, it was clearly proposed that during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan" period, 1 billion square meters of new green buildings be completed, and that by the end of 2015, 20% of new urban buildings meet the requirements of green building standards. The implementation of the new edition of the Green Building Evaluation Standard conforms to the needs of China's green building development and will play an important role in promoting China's green building development and advancing ecological civilization construction.