The world’s leading built environment organisations – BRE (the Building Research Establishment) and USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council) – have announced a first-of-its-kind partnership that will promote the expertise of both businesses and harness their combined industry insights, to deliver a new industry approach to building and built environment performance, solutions and benchmarking.

 

The two organisations aim to highlight the role that buildings can play in improving environmental, economic and health outcomes and to positively impact the quality of life of people around the world. Their joint vision, according to a statement on the news, is “to create a better built environment that’s cleaner, more efficient, more sustainable and fully meets the world’s current and future urbanisation needs”.

 

Building a better world together

 

“BRE is the world’s leading building science centre, and has been at the forefront of developing knowledge and standards for almost 100 years,” informed Niall Trafford, the organisation’s CEO. “We sponsor and conduct research which continually improves productivity, quality, environmental performance, safety and well-being in the built environment. BRE’s standards, digital tools and training programmes are key to equipping the industry and future generations for the global challenges of tomorrow. Our mission is to build a better world together and this partnership will enable us to substantially extend our reach and impact, around the world.”

  

Mahesh Ramanujam, President and CEO at USGBC added that USGBC has led the green building community for nearly two decades, yet further noted that “there is still much work that needs to be done, and the stakes have never been higher”. Mr Ramanujam added that the new collaboration would allows USGBC to leverage its tools and resources “to scale-up the reductions in carbon emissions that are associated with buildings, and accelerate this on all fronts”.

 

 Joint vision for building the future

 

The objectives that BRE and USGBC will pursue and explore together include increasing the level of engagement of existing buildings in the measurement, reporting and improvement of their environmental, social and wellbeing impact.

The new partnership is also focused on embracing a digital strategy that will raise combined technological capabilities and establish industry-wide common data standards and protocols, to make platforms simpler, smarter and more intelligent.

 

Finally, BRE and USGBC will together conduct research to identify future transformation opportunities, to improve the sustainability credentials of the world’s buildings, communities and cities.

 

The collaboration will also leverage BRE and USGBC’s combined market knowledge, partnerships and collective tools through BREEAM, LEED and other rating systems to address all sectors – from new and existing commercial buildings, to new and existing homes, infrastructure, landscape, power, waste, and finance. 

 

BREEAM and LEED are the two most widely used green building programs in the world today. Collectively they have certified the assessments of over 640,000 buildings across more than 126,000 commercial, residential, infrastructure, community and city projects in 167 countries and territories. To-date there are more than 167,000 projects registered to BREEAM and LEED and collectively both programs help form one of the largest industry networks focused on delivering a better outcome for our built and natural environment.