Green residence development has been one of the important strategies for promoting sustainable urban development. Governments throughout the world have been encouraging property developers to deliver green properties. In line with this development, governments have been implementing various assessment programs to certify green residential buildings with the aim of contributing to sustainable urban development. With reference to the Chinese construction practice, this paper examines the effectiveness of the green residence assessment scheme toward its defined aim through investigating the contents and procedures of the green residence assessment scheme by referring to the practices of Chongqing city in western China. Based on the results of five case studies and five semi-structured interviews, this study reveals the significant contribution from implementing the green residence assessment scheme particularly to energy saving in residential buildings. Further, the green residence assessment scheme promotes the application of green building materials and green construction technologies in the entire process of delivering and operating residential buildings. The findings provide valuable references for further investigating alternative methods to achieve better energy saving in developing residential buildings. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.