Building construction is one of the largest final consumers of environmental resources as well as one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gas and other pollution. This paper aims to propose ecological indicators for green building construction by applying a slack-based data envelop analysis approach, in which resource conservation and environmental protection are both incorporated. We conduct an empirical analysis of ecological indicators for green building construction using China's regional panel dataset during 1995-2012, and use the analysis to further discuss the technological gaps across the regions. The findings show that: (i) half of China's provinces have a substantial potential increase of more than 60% in ecological performance for green building construction; (ii) the developed areas perform better than the developing areas; (iii) the 11th five-year plan period is a turning point for China's green building construction and development as the policies for green construction haye significant effects. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.