Pursuing green building certification for major renovation projects, including schools, has become common due to its associated resource efficiency, reduced operation cost, and enhanced indoor environmental conditions. The perceived renovation costs may discourage professionals from pursuing the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating systems. To attain cost-effective LEED certifications, the authors developed an optimization model capable of identifying practical credits then ranking them by their associated costs. A case study was performed using a random sample of nine constructed schools in Dubai. The model output revealed that schools could be renovated to LEED Certified, Silver, Gold, and Platinum with average cost increases of 0.15%, 0.46%, 1.42%, and 4.97%, respectively. Because of the insignificant cost differences between upgrading to LEED Certified, LEED Silver, and LEED Gold, the authors advise upgrading most school buildings to the Gold certificate level.

Furthermore, average energy and water consumption savings at the LEED Platinum tier are estimated to be 30% and 27%, respectively. Some sample schools were built to meet the city’s mandatory green building regulations, thus allowing the model to identify the effects of local regulation. Finally, the proposed investments in water and energy conservation could be retrieved within a maximum of seven years.

由于其相关的资源效率，降低的运营成本和改善的室内环境条件，对包括学校在内的重大翻新项目寻求绿色建筑认证已变得普遍。预计的翻新成本可能会阻止专业人士追求能源与环境设计领导力（LEED）评级系统。为了获得具有成本效益的LEED认证，作者开发了一种优化模型，该模型能够识别实际信用，然后按其相关成本对其进行排名。案例研究使用了迪拜9所建造学校的随机样本进行。模型输出显示，可以将学校改造为LEED认证，银级，金级和白金级，平均成本分别增加0.15％，0.46％，1.42％和4.97％。

此外，LEED白金级的平均能源和水消耗节省分别估计为30％和27％。建立了一些样本学校以满足城市的强制性绿色建筑法规，从而使该模型能够识别当地法规的影响。最后，在节水和节能方面的拟议投资最多可在七年内收回。