ABSTRACT
This chapter surveys the development of the environmental assessment of buildings more colloquially 'green building' both as a concept in the private market and its increasing inclusion in policy and planning, based on a case study of the emergence of a green building standard in Israel. It explores these developments in localized Israeli governance conditions where, amid the broader context of political and economic pressures, green building has developed under the strong influence of a very international field with shared green building institutions and standards. An Actor-Network Theory (ANT) framework invites a questioning of how concepts and artefacts take hold and become considered legitimate. Building environmental assessment methods have created a comprehensive approach to assessing the environmental performance of buildings. The most obvious aspect of green building tools is the process of assessment and certification, but to describe these as merely assessment tools implies that there is an independent notion of environmental impact that they rate.
