To complement its Green Globes environmental assessment and rating system for New Construction, the Green Building Initiative (GBI) recently began offering the Green Globes for Continual Improvement of Existing Buildings (Green Globes-CIEB) module, which is being used by various organizations as a component of their greening strategies.
Green Globes-CIEB is an interactive online system designed to give building owners and facility managers a practical and cost-effective way to assess and improve the performance of commercial and institutional buildings. Flexible and user-friendly, it allows users to assess ongoing building performance in a seamless continuum, making it possible to establish a baseline, prioritize and plan improvements, monitor success, and compare multiple buildings within a portfolio. The tool can be used to verify that design objectives have been met once new buildings are fully operational or as an ongoing green management tool for existing buildings.
In mid-2008 some of the largest corporations and real estate companies have committed to use the assessment tool on their portfolios. Notable participants include Bristol-Myers Squibb, which used the tool to assess its research and development facility in Wallingford, Connecticut, earning a Two Green Globes certification; USAA Real Estate Company, which is using the CIEB tool on up to 20 buildings as part of their sustainability efforts; Tishman Speyer-Chicago, which is assessing 12 buildings; and the Carol Woods Retirement Community, which used Green Globes-CIEB to assess and improve the environmental performance of 10 buildings at its Chapel Hill, North Carolina, facility.
Green Globes-CIEB was adapted from its successful Canadian counterpart, which represents more than nine years of research and refinement by a range of prominent international organizations and experts. Among other things, it forms the basis of BOMA Canada’s national energy and environmental program, Go Green Plus, which is used by the federal government for its portfolio of more than 300 buildings, and is integral to the Ontario Power Authority’s program for energy retrofits.
Green Globes has also been formally recognized by the United States Department of the Interior and the Department of Health and Human Services for use on projects through these agencies formal policy guidance documents. Additionally, GBI is now an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Energy Star partner, as both Green Globes-New Construction and Green Globes-CIEB use the Energy Star tools as the basis for energy benchmarking. The tool also complements the Building Owners and Managers Association, International (BOMA) Energy Efficiency Program’s (BEEP) goals for a 10% reduction in the energy consumption of buildings. Earlier this year, GBI signed a memorandum of understanding with BOMA International to co-promote the two programs.
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