Proving a Building 'Green' Can Be Daunting

The massive City Center development in Las Vegas is huge, expensive and environmentally friendly. It meets the building industry's green building, or LEED, standards. LEED, which stands for leadership in energy and environmental design, is the most widely used set of standards for "green" building.

But critics knock LEED's one-size-fits all point system and the cumbersome certification process.

As a result, the U.S. Green Building Council, which administers LEED certification, is rewriting the standards and streamlining the certification process. Other building organizations are writing their own green building standards, and cities and counties across the country are adapting elements of LEED that fit local conditions.