LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It is an international green building certification system established and implemented by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) in 1993. The LEED certification system is currently considered the most comprehensive and influential evaluation standard in various types of building environmental assessments, green building assessments, and building sustainability assessments around the world.  It has become a model for countries around the world to establish their own green building and sustainability assessment standards.

The LEED certification system has many sub-systems based on project type and function, but the technical framework of each sub-system is essentially the same, including nine categories of indicators.

In LEED certification, each category of indicators includes prerequisites and credit points. A green building must meet all the prerequisite requirements, and its certification level is determined by the sum of scores in each category.

The maximum score in the LEED certification system is 110 points, and the certification levels range from lowest to highest as follows:

Certified: 40-49 points;

Silver: 50-59 points;

Gold: 60-79 points;

Platinum: 80-110 points.