Learn More about Recent Developments with Green Construction Rating Systems and Standards
Spring 2014 was a period of great activity in the development of green construction rating systems and standards. Organizations issued new versions of prior standards and programs or debuted new programs altogether. Below is a summary of a handful of these developments. In addition, states and cities are adopting green communities and green streets programs such as multimodal urban street design programs, ecodistricts, and “complete streets” initiatives. Keep an eye out for local news in these areas.
- EarthCraft Sustainable Preservation – Southeast. EarthCraft Sustainable Preservation (ECSP) is a regional green building certification program created specifically for historic buildings. ECSP offers third-party certification for environmentally responsible design and construction practices for historic buildings in the Southeast. The program is designed to evaluate and highlight what is inherently sustainable about historic buildings while providing guidance on appropriate alterations to make them more energy and water efficient. Launched by Southface and The Georgia Trust. Information courtesy of http://www.earthcraft.org/sustainable-preservation.
- Green Garage Certification. The Green Parking Council launched a new program, Green Garage Certification, to define and recognize sustainable practices in parking structure management, programming, design, and technology. Built through the collaboration of over 200 professionals from the parking, real estate, technology and sustainability worlds, Green Garage Certification promotes a holistic approach to garage performance and sustainability and encourages the adoption of emerging smart parking and intelligent transportation tools. Information courtesy of http://www.greenparkingcouncil.org/.
- Green Globes for Sustainable Interiors. The Green Building Initiative (GBI) released a new certification program specific to design of interiors of commercial and institutional buildings. Green Globes for Sustainable Interiors focuses exclusively on the sustainable design and construction of interior spaces in non-residential buildings and can be pursued by both building owners and individual lessees of commercial spaces. When pursuing Green Globes for Sustainable Interiors certification, tenants can focus on both designing new and/or improving their interior space to Green Globes standards without the need to certify an entire building. Information courtesy of http://www.thegbi.org/.
- Living Future Challenges. The International Living Future Institute released v3 of its Living Building Challenge and introduced a Living Community Challenge. A building certification program, the Living Building Challenge is comprised of seven performance categories called Petals: Place, Water, Energy, Health & Happiness, Materials, Equity and Beauty. The Living Community Challenge helps planners and developers rethink how they design their community-scale projects, providing certification at both the master planning stages as well as for fully built community or campus scale projects. Information courtesy of http://www.living-future.org.
- National Performance Based Design Guide. The National Institute of Building Sciences has published a new National Performance Based Design Guide, housed on the Whole Building Design Guide website at http://npbdg.wbdg.org/. It is the first broad-reaching, performance-based standard for use by facility owners and building industry professionals. The NPBDG is based on the recently updated U.S. General Services Administration P-100: Facilities Standards for the Public Buildings Service. The NPBDG uses four levels of performance defined in matrices, baseline performance and Tiers 1-3 of high performance. Information courtesy of http://www.nibs.org/.
- Sustainable SITES. The SITES v2 Rating System has been released by the Sustainable Sites Initiative™ (SITES™) program for use by landscape architects, designers, engineers, architects, developers, policymakers and others who work in land design and development. The SITES v2 Rating System and an accompanying Reference Guide provide a set of best practices, performance benchmarks and tools for creating and evaluating sustainable landscapes. Successful projects are recognized with certification. Landscapes are considered sustainable if they reduce water demand, filter and reduce stormwater runoff, provide wildlife habitat, reduce energy consumption, improve air quality, improve human health, and increase outdoor recreation opportunities. Currently 30 of the 100 pilot projects have received certification. Negotiations are underway with the Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) to provide project certification to the requirements of the SITES v2 Rating System and a related professional credentialing program. Information courtesy of http://www.sustainablesites.org/.
- WELL Building Standard. The International Well Building Institute (IWBI) launched a peer review process for the WELL Building Standard®, which will culminate in the release of v1.0 of the WELL Building Standard late this year. The WELL Building Standard® can be applied to commercial, institutional, and residential developments including new construction, core and shell, and tenant improvements. The WELL Building Standard® is certified by GBCI, the same organization that provides certification for LEED. Currently in pilot phase, the WELL Building Standard® sets performance requirements in seven categories: air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort, and mind. On-site post-occupancy performance assessments that include air and water testing are required for certification. Information courtesy of http://wellbuildinginstitute.com/.