GRIHA (Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment) is a rating tool that helps people assesses the performance of their building against certain nationally acceptable benchmarks. It evaluates 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, seeks to strike a balance between the established practices and emerging concepts, both national and international.

The World Green Building Council's 2014 report, Health, Wellbeing and Productivity in Offices, included toolkits designed to help businesses measure the impact of their environments and assess the potential for improvement. More toolkits will be added as the project progresses.

Latin American countries have been implementing some innovative market incentives to catalyse the expansion of the green economy, in particular in relation to natural resource conservation and development of greener energy and infrastructure. This Guide explores these experiences to identify useful lessons for other regions of the world.

Amidst rapid urbanisation, Latin American countries have been scaling-up green building, in some cases achieving significant reductions in energy consumption, water use, carbon dioxide emissions, and solid waste. This Brief explores how.