Nachhaltiges Bauen in Deutschland - Bewertungssystem des Bundes für Büro- und Verwaltungsbauten

Sustainable construction in Germany - Assessment system of the Federal Government for office and administration buildings.

55% of all investments are made in the buildings sector. Over its entire value added chain, the construction industry accounts for 11% of output in Germany and employs 12% of the workforce subject to compulsory social insurance. The construction, housing and property sectors are involved in a multiplicity of interrelationships with measures and objectives of the Federal Government's sustainable development strategy. Principal among these are climate change mitigation, improving energy efficiency, improving the productivity of energy and raw materials, reducing land take and shaping demographic change.
The assessment of the contribution made by individual structures to sustainable development results in the call for the development of an overall system for the description and appraisal of buildings, including the land on which they are built. Sustainability considerations are characterized by a whole life cycle analysis and the comprehensive inclusion of ecological, economic and socio-cultural aspects. Alongside energy balances, therefore, it is also necessary to study the material flows and financial impacts, in particular. The development, trialling and application of systems for describing, assessing and certifying the sustainability of buildings is tied to a number of prerequisites. In particular, the changeover to an assessment and certification system based predominantly on quantitative assessments poses a significant challenge.
The new sustainable construction assessment system that has been developed in Germany is a voluntary market instrument and is currently designed for office and administrative buildings, and has been trialled on such buildings. It is available to all users free of charge and can be downloaded from the following website: www.nachhaltigesbauen.de. The Federal Government plans to make the system mandatory for federal buildings by introducing it with the Sustainable Construction Guide via the federal building authorities, thereby setting an example of good practice.
The system can be used by other providers. Widening it to include other categories of buildings will be done by appropriate system providers. These providers can have their system recognized by the Bundesministerium für Verkehr, Bau- und Stadtentwicklung (BMVBS; Federal Ministry of Transport, Building and Urban Development). In the case of buildings and structural works that are of significant public interest, assessment systems will be developed and implemented in working groups comprising representatives of public agencies and hosted by the BMVBS.