Instead of destroying the environment, green building materials can pretect the environment and save energy and resources. The concept and research content of green building materials are dealt with in this paper. The development of evaluation standards and exploitation is investigated briefly. There has been great progress in research and popularization of green building materials in Europe, America and Japan; nevertheless, advances in this aspect are not encouraging in China. China constructs 800 million square meters of buildings per year for city residence (200 million square meters), public construction, rural construction and industrial construction, which need large quantities of building materials and decoration materials; decoration materials, in particular, have been increasing rapidly both in varieties and in quantities. Their effects on public health are increasingly serious so that we should study and popularize green building materials. The authors hold that the public researchers and government policy makers should raise their consciousness of environmental protection, develop and apply green building materials to improve healthy and safety conditions of inhabitants and guarantee the sustainable development of the society.