Sustainable Building Standards

The good folks at the BIG-EU office (MarDirect) decided that I should write the editorial for the upcoming BACnet Europe Journal, issue #11. The focus of this issue was right down my alley so I agreed and put it on my ToDo list (which is part of my Weekly Report to my supervisors --that's plural, one in Germany and one in Redmond-- so it doesn't get forgotten).

Since then I'd kept looking at it but there was always something more immediate. Until today, when I realized the deadline is tomorrow. A bit of a scramble but I got it together and e-mailed off to them.

But in the process I finally looked into something I'd meant for some time to look into. As a LEED AP I'm certainly quite aware of the US Green Building Council and know that LEED is recognized and sometimes used elsewhere in the world, but I'd never looked up the World Green Building Council before. What a surprise, to see the national GBCs already established (I knew of a couple, but not the rest), and those being organized. Still, there are also some systems not represented, such as the Chinese "3 Star."

"Standards must be good," goes the joke, "otherwise why would we have so many of them?"

I suspect all of these groups have something to share with the rest: particulars of dealing with specific climates, experiences in what's been tried and succeeded (or failed) -- why not a single international standard for sustainable buildings?