If your company is shortlisting commercial property in Delhi NCR, the brochures will show green badges. LEED Platinum. IGBC Platinum. GRESB 5-Star. They look alike. They answer three different questions.
LEED rates a single building's design and, in some versions, its operations. IGBC is India's own system and often appears as a "pre-certification" at the design stage. GRESB rates the company and its portfolio, not your floor.
If you are the engineer or facilities person asked to "check the sustainability stuff," this is the short version, plus a small script to test whether a building's air data backs up its badge.
LEED: a points table for one building
LEED comes from the U.S. Green Building Council. A project earns points across energy, water, materials, indoor air and site. Under LEED v4, the tiers are Certified (40-49 points), Silver (50-59), Gold (60-79) and Platinum (80+).
Think of it as a scorecard at a point in time. A building certified under a design and construction track tells you how it was built. It does not, by itself, tell you how it runs today.
Max Towers in Sector 16B, Noida, holds LEED Platinum. That is a strong design signal. The follow-up question for any LEED building, this one included, is simple: which rating system, which year, and is there recent operational data?
IGBC: pre-certified is a promise
The Indian Green Building Council, part of CII, runs India's main rating system. Its tiers mirror LEED's: Certified, Silver, Gold, Platinum.
The word to watch is "pre-certified." Pre-certification is granted on design documents before or during construction. Full certification comes after the building is complete and verified.
Max Square in Noida carries IGBC Platinum pre-certification. That tells you the design targets are high. It is fair, and normal, to ask the landlord when final certification is expected.
GRESB: the company, not the floor
GRESB assesses real estate companies and funds every year on ESG management and performance. Star ratings (1 to 5) compare a participant against its peers in that cycle.
Max Estates holds a dual GRESB 5-Star rating. What that means for a tenant: the landlord reports ESG data in a structured, audited way. If your own company files Scope 3 emissions, a GRESB-reporting landlord is usually easier to get numbers from.
What it does not mean: that your specific floor has better air than the next building. That needs its own check.
Questions a tech team should ask
Badges are inputs. Data is the answer. Ask for these before you sign.
Indoor air data
Ask whether the building measures PM2.5 and CO2 at the floor level, and whether tenants can see the feed. A dashboard screenshot is a start. An export or an API is better.
Ask what CO2 level triggers more fresh air, and who sets that threshold.
Energy and meters
Ask for sub-metering per tenant area. Without it, your energy share is an estimate. Your sustainability team will need real numbers for annual reports.
Certificate dates
Ratings carry dates and versions. Ask for the certificate, the rating system version, and any recertification plans. An old certificate on a busy building is worth a follow-up question.
A small script for an air feed
Say the landlord shares an hourly CO2 export as JSON. You can test it in ten lines.
import json
THRESHOLD_PPM = 1000 # set this to your own policy
with open("co2_hourly.json") as f:
rows = json.load(f) # [{"ts": "...", "floor": "7", "co2": 640}, ...]
office_hours = [r for r in rows if 9 <= int(r["ts"][11:13]) < 19]
over = [r for r in office_hours if r["co2"] > THRESHOLD_PPM]
share = 100 * len(over) / max(len(office_hours), 1)
print(f"{len(office_hours)} office-hour readings")
print(f"{share:.1f}% above {THRESHOLD_PPM} ppm")
The threshold here is a policy choice, not a rule. Pick one with your facilities team and keep it fixed across every building you compare. A number that changes between buildings makes the test useless.
Also check for gaps. A feed missing three days a week is telling you something too.
Where the badges stop
Green ratings say nothing about rent, lift wait times, fit-out timelines, or your team's commute. A Platinum building two hours from your hiring pool is still two hours away.
Use the badges to narrow the list. Use data and site visits to decide.
Further reading
The Max Towers project page lists its certification, and the Max Estates sustainability page covers the portfolio-level ESG reporting. For a wider view of office options across the region, the Delhi NCR Properties guide is a decent starting map.
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