GRIHA Certification: the national rating system, scored out of five stars.

GRIHA scores a project against its criteria and converts the points earned into a rating of one to five stars, with five being the highest. Points are claimed criterion by criterion with supporting evidence, and the final star rating is fixed only after the GRIHA Council's appraisal: which includes verification, so claimed points and awarded points are not always the same.

The GRIHA Council, an independent body set up by The Energy and Resources Institute with support from the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy. That government association is why GRIHA is described as the national rating system and why it appears in central and state procurement requirements more often than other systems.

It depends on who has to be satisfied. GRIHA carries government standing through its MNRE association and is frequently the one specified in public-sector projects and CPWD works; IGBC is industry-led through CII and is common in commercial real estate and among developers. Where no one has specified, the choice turns on the building type, the criteria the project can realistically meet, and the audience for the certificate.

Beyond the main rating for new buildings, the Council operates versions for existing buildings, for large developments and campuses, for affordable housing, a simplified version for small projects, and a framework for cities. Each has its own criteria set and thresholds, so registering under the correct variant materially changes what has to be documented.

Several criteria reward practices that only exist while the site is active: construction waste segregation and diversion, topsoil preservation, air and noise control on site, worker facilities, and documented sourcing of materials. Evidence for these cannot be reconstructed after handover, so a project that engages late simply forfeits those points.

Not as a general legal requirement. It becomes binding when a client, tender condition or state incentive scheme specifies it, a number of government building programmes and state incentive frameworks require a minimum star rating, and that is where the obligation typically comes from.

The star rating drops to whatever band the verified points fall into. This is why documentation quality matters more than an optimistic scorecard: a criterion claimed without defensible evidence is not a criterion earned. We plan to a target with margin above the band threshold rather than sitting exactly on it.

GRIHA has energy criteria that require demonstrating performance better than a reference case, and these draw on the same simulation work used for code compliance. It does not, however, discharge a project's obligation to comply with the Energy Conservation Building Code or its state-adopted version where that applies, that remains a separate demonstration to the local authority.