Battle of the Sustainability Standards

Posted September 2009

The developed world has an array of sustainability standards for the built environment.

We are finally seeing encouraging moves towards consistency and collaboration.

In April 2009 the UK Green Building Council, BRE, the US Green Building Council and the Green Building Council Australia signed a memorandum of understanding, to develop common metrics to measure emissions of CO₂ equivalents from new buildings.

Will there ever be a global sustainability standard?

A global standard looks some considerable way off; governance issues as well as resistance from the vested systems are likely to sabotage efforts towards a single framework.

Both BREEAM and LEED have taken steps outside their home territories. The BRE has developed an international BREEAM standard and LEED is working with the Emirates Green Building Council to identify UAE-specific credits.

Other rating systems include CEEQUAL (for civil engineering projects), the Code for Sustainable Homes, Energy Performance Certificates and Display Energy Certificates (EPC and DECs).

Germany has a very successful PassivHaus system and Europe is working on a pan-European tool (LENSE).

Faithful+Gould has led international projects requiring more than one assessment. 

These include Tour Phare in Paris and The Lighthouse (Dubai International Financial Centre), where we combined the LEED and BREEAM assessments, reducing costs associated with duplication of effort.

Our Asia Pacific team is working with both LEED and local systems.

Several of our clients in Singapore, including HSBC, Sandvik and the National Research Foundation, require the local BCA Green Mark Platinum certification.

In China a new life science facility for a major research and development client is being completed to both LEED Platinum and local Green Building Evaluation ‘Three Star' standards.

In the UAE our sustainability team is working with several different standards.

LEED has gained a sizable portion of the market through engagement on Dubai based projects, but other local standards are emerging.

The Dubai Municipality are currently working on green building regulations and Abu Dhabi's Estidama system may become more widespread.

How we can help

We have had considerable success in exporting and adapting sustainability appraisal methods developed in the UK and North America to other countries, ensuring a strong cross-fertilisation of ideas.

We have a global team of assessors for all major certification schemes, with significant experience of achieving the most cost-effective solutions for clients.