Newsletter July 2012

Dear SB Alliance friends,

We are pleased to announce that the SB Alliance worked very efficiently in 2011-2012. The three working groups completed their reports.

Finalized works

The first group which worked on indicators will have its report published with the framework for common metrics of 2010, in order to raise awareness on the six indicators and their compliance with the existing rating schemes. An independent British publisher (ISH) specialized in research papers will publish the report. The work is also part of the call for project to participate in CIB world building congress in Australia in 2013.

The second group gathering members from Finland and France worked on the building information modeling assessed how the indicators can be integrated into the ifc format. It submitted an abstract for CIB W78 conference.

The final report of the third group with members from Poland, Switzerland and France who worked on green value is currently under peer review.

Launch of new works

Your ongoing support allowed for the three research projects which were approved at the last general assembly in March to get started.

1)    The first research project Piloting the SBA common metrics PHASE 2: “Beyond research to operational application and comparability” (see presentation) is the core working group of SB Alliance, with members coming from France, Germany, Italy, Czech Republik, Finland and Spain. The purpose of the group is to work on the 4 environmental indicators which were identified as priority (carbon, energy, water and waste) and to test them on one building using the different rating schemes and a full life cycle assessment.

2)     The second project: Linking SBA metrics with construction products manufacturer’s BIM e-Catalogues (see presentation) is the continuation work on the building information modeling directly aimed at manufacturers.

3)    The third project: Identification of the Sustainable Building Performance thresholds generating Green Value (see presentation) is a collaborative work between SB Alliance members, RICS and the World GBC, as the topic of the “green value” raises a lot of interest worldwide.  

In addition the project of working group on urban sustainability is active: a workshop will be organised in Paris end of October. It has been decided that 2012 will be spent defining the scope, participants, budget and organization of this group before making it operational in 2013 if decided by the board. To give you an insight on what our members will be working on, you can have a look at three recent papers published on that topic: here, here and here.

SB Alliance events

Bruno Mesureur, Secretary General, participated in the Consense event on behalf of SB Alliance on June 18-20 in Stuttgart, Germany.

Contact: [email protected]