From left to right, Carole-Emilie Rampelberg (CSTB-Certivéa), Phil Buttery (BRE), Pekka Huovila (VTT), Julien Hans (CSTB) and Bruno Mesureur (CSTB).

Morning conference, March 1st 2012

Photos by Nelo Hagen
Property: Valencia Institute of Building, IVE

Please download here the communication paper of the working group “Pilot test on common metrics”.

Please download here the communication paper of the working group “Linking SBA indicators to IFC and BIM”.

The presentation on research works is available for members to download here

Dear SBA Members and dear friends,
The Year 2011 comes to an end and it was particularly rich and successful for the SB Alliance. In March 2011, the General Assembly has voted a significant research budget that allowed us to perform 3 research projects dealing with: Pilot test on indicators, Relationships to IFC / BIM and Green impact.
However, a budget is nothing else but a forecast. At the end of the year, SB Alliance counts now 12 full members and 14 associate members all over the world. The members’ fees amount to more than 230 000 Euros and therefore, thanks to your support, we have been able to reach the revenues that were previously budgeted.
Three groups have been working on these issues all along the year and the pilots reported the works at the last board meeting in Helsinki in October. Two reports were already published. The three research programs will be completed in January 2012 and communication papers will be issued in the coming weeks.
The Common Metrics report that was published in December 2009 currently includes the following indicators, compliant with the works of the CEN TC 350 commission: Global Warming Potential (GWP), use of non-renewable primary energy, Water consumption, Solid wastes production, Indoor environment quality (IEQ) (currently considering the Thermal comfort, Indoor air CO2 concentration and Formaldehyde
concentration). In 2011 this framework has been pilot-tested within existing assessment systems and in real projects in order to analyse the feasibility of the indicators calculation and verify the consistency and the comparability of these indicators. The first main results are the feasibility tables allowing us to define a common framework for all the member countries; this is key aspect for the comparability of the results.
Each member country participating in the working group has provided its own national tables and feasibility analysis, which is also displaying data sources and availability details. These pilot tests also provided consolidated results from real buildings, which permit to propose recommendations and evolve to the consolidation of the existing indicators and to the development of new ones. Clearly this research topic has attracted great interest from many partners: CSTB (pilot of the WG), BRE, DGNB, GECINA, GBC Australia, IVE, QUALITEL, TZUS, US GBC…
The second working group linking SBA indicators with IFC and BIM has just completed its report. Using six different existing BIM (Building Information Modeling) tools the group members assessed the possibility to link SBA indicators to the IFC (Industry Foundation Classes) standards.
The Green Impact group is working on a state of play report of the rating tools, focusing on CASBEE and DGNB which include economic indicators already. This will be combined with the results of the Sustainable Investment in Real Estate (s-i-r-e) study on the financial performance of sustainable office and retail properties in Europe. From this combination, common indicators will be identified.
The results of the SBA research program have found echoes in Europe. For example, in France CERTIVEA, a CSTB subsidiary has developed the new HQE certification based primarily on a next generation method, compatible with international indicators such as the Sustainable Building Alliance and
CEN TC 350. This is also true outside Europe: the World GBC and other national GBCs (e.g. Australian GBC, Japan GBC, China GBC etc.) have expressed their interest in our studies.
In 2011, we participated in some international events such as Eco Build in London, the Annual Conference of the World GBC and Green Build in Toronto, Symposium organized by the Polish GBC in Krakow.
What about the future?
The call for proposals was published in December and we are now waiting for your suggestions, either to pursue the ongoing research works and enlarge the field of investigation or to propose new topics. Some
partners have already proposed to create new working groups, e.g. FCAV to develop a SBA chapter in Brazil and Latin America, Vinci Facilities to create a working group on existing buildings and CSTB to enlarge our research scope to urban morphologies and eco cities. We encourage these members to finalize their projects in the coming weeks and to submit new research topics.
Eventually, a mandate was given to our colleague from DGNB in order to guide communication with interested parties, such as regulatory bodies (e.g. the European Commission and the JRC) or bodies supporting regulation (e.g. World GBC, UNEP SBCI). It will be a priority in 2012 to communicate on the
outcomes of our research works, to give more visibility to our actions and cooperate with major organisations such as the World GBC. A meeting with the DG Environment of the EC will be organised in the coming weeks. SB Alliance works will be presented at a conference organized by the Serbian GBC next February and, thanks to IVE, the next SBA AGM will take place in Valencia, Spain.

For further information, please visit our website which is being redesigned and updated! Don’t forget to send us the information sheet presenting your company, in case you still would not have sent it!

We take this opportunity to express, once again, our warmest thanks to the new members who joined SB Alliance in 2011 and we wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year!
SB Alliance
Secretary General