BRE Trust, CSTB, BRE Global and CertiVéA: an agreement to develop a European building environmental quality certification

Nowadays, closer cooperation between the signing bodies should lead to setting up an efficient, nationally and internationally respected environmental building quality evaluation system that will be more and more frequently adopted in Europe and throughout the entire world.

This is why BRE and CSTB and their certification subsidiaries BRE Global and CertiVéa have signed an agreement with the objective of aligning reference systems for the evaluation of Building Environmental Quality issued by these two organisations in the countries in which they work.  Eventually, this will help to develop and promote a common Europe-wide evaluation method and mark managed by a European council.   Signatories will offer a one-stop service to their customers on their respective markets, throughout the period in which this European reference system is being produced.  Thus, the CertiVéA will issue BREEAM as an option, complementary to the NF Tertiary Buildings - HQE® approach certification.

This initiative extends the scientific and technical organization work initiated by BRE and CSTB with other major bodies such as QUALITEL, DGnB, VTT, NIST, ITC-CNR and the FCAV under the leadership of SB Alliance considering operational aspects of certification.

Paul Gibbon, Director of Sustainability (BRE Global) says, "this is an enormous step forward in making two of the leading assessment tools in Europe more consistent and is an important step towards a single European assessment tool."  Bertrand Delcambre, CSTB President, says "this initiative, eagerly awaited by the market, will provide more clarity across Europe and will be more consistent with national policies such as the Multi-Stakeholders’ Consultation Meeting on the Environment in France, and carbon objectives in the United Kingdom."