Green Building Rating Systems - Going Beyond the Labels is a thought-leadership paper from Upstream Sustainability Services. It looks at the common systems currently in use for rating and labelling a building's sustainability and seeks to encourage forward-thinking companies to exceed these ratings for a truly sustainable and innovative building.
A growing number of property investors, developers and corporate occupiers are looking to differentiate their buildings, especially in the current market. The use of rating systems such as BREEAM, LEED and Green Star offer the means to do this, and as a result, their use in the market has increased exponentially. At the same time, these labelling systems are expanding their reach beyond the boundaries of their countries of origin, meaning that a company will have a choice between different rating systems in any given country. The paper seeks to provide an overview and guidance on the rating systems by identifying the five key considerations one should consider when choosing between them. It suggests that the rating systems by themselves are not enough to provide the ultimate solution to sustainable design. Far more challenging and complex design methods are now evolving to ensure that the buildings we develop today are truly sustainable in the longer term.