Denver — In its ongoing effort to define a true measure of sustainability in the built environment, the Cascadia Region Green Building Council issued the Living Building Challenge. This evolving set of guidelines, designed for building owners, architects engineers and design professionals, elevates the criteria for a green building to a level previously unrecognized. The Living Building standard comprises 16 prerequisites—there are no credits to tabulate— in six categories: Site Design, Energy, Materials, Water, Indoor Quality, and Beauty & Inspiration. Prerequisites are performance based, not prescriptive, and are based on ideal targets that would result in truly sustainable performance. For example, a Living Building must supply all of its own energy and water needs with renewable sources captured on-site; owners and builders may choose any design and implementation to achieve this end. All 16 prerequisites must be met to comply for certification (some specific exceptions may apply as outlined in the standard). The Living Building standard works for all building types and applies to new and existing construction. A project must be completed and operating for at least one year before eligible to apply for certification.

Specific rules on how to document compliance and seek the Living Building designation will be presented in a forthcoming document, “The Living Building User’s Guide,” and other tools and processes are planned. Cascadia welcomes participation from industry professionals in this effort in terms of feedback, research and sponsorship. ED+C is a Gold sponsor of the challenge. For more information, visit www.cascadiagbc.org and see page 99 in the Nov. 2006 issue of ED+C.