Awards
We are pleased to announce that we have been awarded the Durable Innovator Award 2009 from the DGBC ( Dutch Green Building Council)
Introduction DGBC
The Dutch Green Building Council (DGBC) was founded in 2007 in The Netherlands as a market initiative. The aim was to make Sustainability in the building industry measurable by developing a sustainability label allowing for the uniform rating of buildings throughout the Netherlands.
The initiative came from the building industry itself. The industry felt a strong need for promoting the concept of sustainability quantification and assessing buildings unequivocally in a manner that is accepted internationally. The original five ’Founding Partners’ have already been joined by more than 200 other ‘Participants’ representing almost all industry sectors. And since the first label for New Buildings has become operational on the first of October 2009, this number is still growing consistently.
Need for CO2 reduction
From construction to daily operation, buildings in Europe are responsible for almost 40% of the continent’s CO2 emissions. With this in mind, the DGBC was formed to meet the growing demand for sustainable development from occupiers, investors and developers alike within the real estate industry. The council’s mission is to drastically improve sustainability levels in the built environment, working towards climate neutral buildings that are both pleasant and healthy to work in, and win back the Dutch leading position in the area of sustainability.
The choise for breeam
After consulting the participants regarding their criteria on a practical sustainable certification DGBC concluded they were looking for a system that provides international comparability, is adaptable to the local situation and standards (climate, building regulations, etc), is open and transparent, allows for a good balance between price and quality and provides for independent assessments. Having examined various international options for benchmarking buildings, the DGBCchoose to use the English BREEAM methodology as the basis for their sustainability label. The ‘Environmental Assessment Method’ of buildings was originally developed by the Building Research Establishment (BRE), a British research organization, hence the name BREEAM. BRE has had more than 100,000 buildings certified and operates in 15 different countries.
