The Shanghai World Financial Center (SWFC) was designed in the early 1990's before the development of the U.S. Green Building Council's LEED Green Building Rating System. Sustainable benchmarks did not exist at this time, however, the design of the SWFC does integrate a sustainable approach by focusing on the reduction of 'embodied energy' - the energy required to create, transport, and construct the building components.

© Mori Building Co. Ltd. The tower's efficient structural design, minimalist facade, and tightly integrated buildings systems exemplify an approach to minimizing material waste and reducing construction time (time is energy). To an extent, the SWFC recalls the essential purity of early modernist architecture. The minimalist style of modern architecture was created as a response to the material shortages following the World Wars in Europe.

Sustainability needs to be considered at the city scale or even the global scale. Vinod Khosla, the venture capitalist, noted that sustainability needs to be scalable to have a real impact. It is important to design individual green buildings, but connecting individual buildings with public transportation is essential. Building in dense urban environments with efficient public transportation is a way to achieve large-scale sustainability.

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