The Portland, Ore.-based Green Building Initiative (GBI) celebrated 10 years of promoting green building during October. GBI is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to accelerate the adoption of building practices that result in energy-efficient, healthier and environmentally sustainable buildings by promoting credible and practical green-building approaches for commercial construction.
Early on, GBI acquired the rights to develop the Green Globes rating system for the U.S. market. Since 2010, GBI has continually refined the system to ensure it reflects changing expectations for green building and ongoing advances in building technology and, in so doing, has involved multiple stakeholders in an open and transparent process for developing green-building rating systems.
In 2005, GBI became the first U.S. green-building organization to be accredited as a standards developer by the American National Standards Institute and began the process of establishing Green Globes as an official ANSI standard. The GBI ANSI technical committee was formed in early 2006 and, in 2010, the official Green Globes New Construction Assessment Methodology for Commercial Buildings was released.
In addition to several other milestones, in 2014, GBI brought on board Jerry Yudelson, P.E., LEED Fellow, as its new president. Yudelson has helped GBI to refine its product offerings and contribute to the national dialog about green building. Yudelson is particularly focused on showcasing the strengths and future opportunities for development of the organization and its range of tools.
As it enters its second decade of growth, GBI plans to orient its rating systems to tackle climate change and bring to market user-friendly green-building rating and assessment tools that allow building owners and facility managers to measure, monitor and achieve sustainable outcomes, especially with respect to energy and water use.
“As an organization, GBI has come a long way in its first 10 years, but the task ahead is a large one: becoming a nationally significant rating system that will challenge established market participants for thought leadership and market dominance,” Yudelson says. “We’re eager to embrace this challenge, and we’re assembling the staff and resources to help us implement ‘a practical approach to green building’.”
For more information, visit thegbi.org.