Choose your own green?

There has always been some suspicion about whether various rating schemes actually delivered reliable guidance about the sustainability credentials of buildings.  

The three major such tools, LEED from the US, BREAM from the UK and GreenStar from Australia are all spawned by the 'property industry' with perhaps three dominant objectives:

• To incorporate as far as possible a comprehensive set of 'indicators' of sustainability;
• To foster 'industry transformation' by creating the incentives for a greater proportion of developments to adopt better standards than the minimum compliance mandated by local authorities; and 
• To maintain self-regulation in the face of likely and imminent government requirements.

Actually, it would be hard to get the industry bodies such as the Green Building Council to publicly admit to the last objective.  But the two other objectives seem reasonable enough, nay, even praiseworthy.  And indeed, there is undeniable evidence that the schemes have had some success.  The chief success, arguably, has been that the ubiquitous 'star ratings' have become the headline marketing tool for premium office buildings as they compete for tenants.

The reliability of these 'points accumulation schemes' in reflecting actual enhanced performance, is worthy of several separate posts, and I won't attempt that discussion here.  Let's just say that whatever may be dodgy in the detail, these ratings only really work if they retain some authoritative comparability between buildings submitted to them.  You have to be at least able to say that you expect Building A to be 'better' than Building B, because it has a higher score using the same criteria.

So it is with some bemusement that in the one week, I have come across two announcements that publicize the credentials of buildings, seemingly flouting that principle.

Australia’s first Green Star hotel on the horizon utilised custom-built rating tool is the heading of an article in Architecture & Design.  At first pass that doesn't seem so problematic, especially if you are aware of the steady rate at which the Green Building Council of Australia has been introducing the building type specific variations of its core rating tool.  The sting for me is buried further into the article, where it points out that "GEOCON (the developer)now has exclusive use of this Green Star rating tool, and Abode Woden has been registered to achieve Green Star certification"  Eh?  So to what is this building being compared?

Once riled, I couldn't help reflect that the thinly editorialised press release also fails to mention the Green Globe rating system, which is the global certification for sustainable tourism. That scheme has been in place for a good ten years. The buildings component of the ratings tool was developed by the then Centre for Sustainable Built Environments at UNSW, but certification requires more than just building ratings, and commits operators to a 'continuous improvement' cycle to maintain the initial ratings for a facility and its operation.

The second announcement was in Sourceable, touting "the first residential building of its size to be certified under a ‘six-leaf’ sustainability rating by the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA)".

Who?  What?  The UDIA turns out to be “Australia’s peak representative body for all segments of the urban development industry”.  In other words a lobby group.  Their EnviroDevelopment certification turns out to be, in their own words, “a scientifically-based branding system designed to make it easier for purchasers to recognise and, thereby, select more environmentally sustainable homes and lifestyles”.  Digging further  yields “An EnviroDevelopment license is valid for a period of 12 months from the date of approval by the EnviroDevelopment Board of Management. However, certification and use of the logo suite is only granted after the licencing agreement and statutory declaration has been signed by both parties and all fees have been paid”. 

Of course, I downloaded the EnviroDevelopment Technical Standards .  I found a very nice checklist template under six useful categories, which referred sporadically to earning points……but nowhere did I find any indication of the number of points you have to earn to gain certification.  I guess the kindest interpretation is that if there isn’t a minimum score for compliance, unlike with LEED or GreenStar, a developer can’t be accused of chasing the easiest points.  All-in-all, I couldn’t quite work out why this scheme is really needed, given that its general thrust and detailed checklists are so hauntingly similar to GreenStar.

I have felt for some time that established ratings had lost any meaningful influence on the design process.  But these two announcements seem to suggest we had reached the point where you can either find at will a whole new ratings scheme to credential yourself under, as long as you pay the license fee, or, I suspect, invent one to suit yourself.  I am now waiting for a breathless announcement about a project, ‘branded’ with some sustainability certification to which I can’t even find any google search links. 

the first residential building of its size to be certified under a ‘six-leaf’ sustainability rating by the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA). - See more at: http://sourceable.net/brisbanes-sustainable-residential-tower-set-commence-two-week-sell/#sthash.8umYOciA.dpuf

the first residential building of its size to be certified under a ‘six-leaf’ sustainability rating by the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA). - See more at: http://sourceable.net/brisbanes-sustainable-residential-tower-set-commence-two-week-sell/#sthash.8umYOciA.dpuf

the first residential building of its size to be certified under a ‘six-leaf’ sustainability rating by the Urban Development Institute of Australia (UDIA). - See more at: http://sourceable.net/brisbanes-sustainable-residential-tower-set-commence-two-week-sell/#sthash.8umYOciA.dpuf