Portland, Ore. — After nearly two years of work by close to 100 building science experts, the Green Building Initiative (GBI) has released its proposed green building standard—known as the “GBI Proposed American National Standard 01-2008P: Green Building Assessment Protocol for Commercial Buildings”—for public comment. Accessible via the GBI Web site (www.thegbi.org), the proposed standard is based on the Green Globes environmental assessment and rating system and will be available for public comment through Monday, June 9, 2008.

“This is the first time that an organization has committed its commercial building rating system to further development through the American National Standards Institute’s (ANSI) third-party codified, consensus-based committee process—which represents the ideals of balance, transparency and public input,” said Ward Hubbell, president of the GBI. “We’re extremely pleased to be a step closer to establishing the Green Globes system as an official standard under ANSI and welcome the opportunity to have the public provide substantive input to the 30-member technical committee.”

The proposed standard incorporates new elements developed by the GBI ANSI technical committee and sub-committees, which include representatives from organizations such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. General Services Administration, American Institute of Architects, American Lung Association, Steel Recycling Institute, Vertegy an Alberici Enterprise, the S/L/A/M Collaborative, Texas A&M University and Virginia Dept. of General Services. Also included and addressed were comments related to the Draft Standard for Trial Use, which was released in 2006. By releasing this pre-draft, GBI invited a broader range of stakeholder comments than typical results from the ANSI review process.

New elements incorporated into the proposed standard include:

The Green Globes LCA Credit Calculator for Building Assemblies, which fully incorporates life cycle assessment (LCA) into the system. While the current version of Green Globes includes education credits encouraging design teams to use LCA as part of their materials decision making process, the proposed standard includes a performance path based on a software tool that provides instant LCA results for hundreds of common building assemblies. The tool was commissioned by the GBI and is available now in generic form from the Athena Institute (www.athenasmi.org).

The Green Globes Water Consumption Calculator, which allows users to project water consumption of new buildings based on their designs.

A change to the energy section, whereby CO2 is used as the basis for calculating the performance path instead of relying solely on projecting kBtu/sf/yr of energy consumed. The new method will continue to rely on the ENERGY STAR’s Target Finder program but will now require the calculation of CO2e (CO2 equivalent).

The requirement to achieve a minimum number of points in each of the system’s seven areas of assessment. Previously, Green Globes required a 35 percent minimum to achieve a rating, but no set number of points in each category. This will change under the proposed standard where users will be required to meet a minimum in each environmental area. However, just as in the current version of Green Globes, a building cannot earn recognition until the final rating is confirmed by a GBI-authorized third-party assessor. Third-party assessment continues to be an integral part of the GBI program, and in the Green Globes system as well as the proposed standard a two-stage review is conducted by a building sciences expert who goes over a project’s construction documents in addition to conducting an on-site walkthrough of the building.

Efforts toward the proposed standard began in 2005 when the GBI became the first green building organization to be accredited as a Standards Developing Organization (SDO) by ANSI. The process soon became an integral part of the GBI’s commitment to developing and promoting consensus-based standards that give design and building professional’s confidence that they are working with tools that represent consensus on science, research, and best practices. The Proposed American National Standard is intended for use by building owners, design teams, developers, contractors, lenders, institutions and various levels of government, and can be applied to a broad range of commercial building types such as- office, multi-family, health care, schools, universities, labs, industrial and retail.

Parties interested in providing comments are invited to complete the Stakeholder Registration Form available on the GBI’s Web site. They can then download a copy of the Proposed Standard and Public Review Form. In addition, they will be invited to review the new Green Globes calculators that have been introduced for use with the Proposed Standard.

Following the period of public review, the ANSI technical committee will meet to evaluate comments received and address any need for further research and revisions to the proposed standard.

For more information about GBI or the Green Globes system, visit www.thegbi.org.