Стр. 114 - Здания Высоких Технологий (зима 2013)
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З Д А Н И Я В Ы С О К И Х Т Е Х Н О Л О Г И Й
and manage our houses in the most
sustainable way. Despite the aston-
ishing progress we have achieved
over the last decades, there is still
much to be done, both in Russia and
abroad. Sustainability in the built
environment is an extremely com-
plex issue that needs the partici-
pation of everybody involved: The
designers, the engineers, the con-
tractors, the facility managers, and –
last, but certainly not least – the
client.
Moreover, we have to change gen-
eral attitudes from a focus on short-
term profits to a holistic view based
on the long term. We have to learn
to always take into consideration
the whole life-cycle of a building,
i.e. its design, its construction, its
use, its refurbishment, and finally
also its deconstruction. This implies
a much wider focus than usually as-
sociated with «green building». For
example, instead of thinking only of
energy efficiency we also have to
learn how to make our buildings ful-
ly recycleable.
among others, an article about lead-
ing rating tools in the world. DGNB,
the rating tool developed by the Ger-
man Sustainable Building Council, is
one of the systems being presented.
DGNB is not only widely used in Eu-
rope, but is currently also adapted to
Brazil, China, and others. Since DGNB
takes a holistic view of sustainability
and puts a focus on the life-cycle, I’m
convinced that it can also be of help
to many architects, engineers, and
clients here in Russia.
Participation and professional ex-
change across the borders among
different disciplines and countries is
the key to an improved standard in
our built environment. For this, we
need trainings, conferences, coun-
cils, and above all: specific publica-
tions allowing for the presentation
of case-studies and state-of-the-art
and I do wish the editors much suc-
cess with their ambitious project. I
look forward to presenting myself
new projects in one of the future is-
sues.
Martin Townsend,
Director
I was very pleased to be invited
to write an introduction for this
BREEAM, it would be very easy for
me to write at length about all the
work we are doing on sustainabili-
ty and BREEAM, but I wanted to look
deeper. The choices we make when
specifying products and services and
designing and developing buildings,
have major impacts on both the sus-
tainability of our projects and their
success.
In order to make the best choic-
es we need information that we can
trust. I therefore wanted to look at
some of the product and building
certification schemes that can deliv-
er the quality of information needed.
Sustainability and Trust
The increasing demands from regula-
tors and the market for greater sus-
tainability in building developments
has, perhaps inevitably, led to a rash
of ‘green’ claims for building prod-
ucts and services. The fact that many
of these are not backed up with any
credible scientific data or third-par-
ty certification can make selecting
them for use in a development pro-
ject something of a lottery.
Achieving a more sustainable built
environment depends on specifiers
being able to trust the claims made
for building products, systems and
services
Providing impartial, authorita-
tive information that the industry
can trust is a key element of the BRE
Global business. The Group which
BRE Global sits in is owned by the
BRE Trust, a charitable company that
aims to advance knowledge, innova-
tion and communication in all mat-
ters concerning the built environ-
ment. This ownership structure has
enabled the Group to remain inde-
pendent of specific commercial in-
terests.
Trusted product and services
One way that specifiers can be as-
sured that products and services can
be trusted to perform as claimed, is
to select those that have been ap-
propriately certified. Expert, inde-
pendent approval and certification
schemes will ensure not only that
sustainability claims are substanti-
ated, but also that the products and
services meet performance stand-
ards appropriate for their intend-
ed use.
It is important to remember, how-
ever, that there are different degrees
of certification offering different lev-
els of assurance.
With first-party certification, for
example, it is the organisation pro-
viding the goods that offers the as-
surance that they meet certain
claims. In second-party certification,
an association to which the organi-
sation belongs may provide this as-
surance. But in third-party certifi-
cation an assessment is carried out
by an independent body – such as
BRE Global – which declares that the
product or service will perform as
required.
This independent assessment al-
lows third-party certification to ob-
jectively distinguish products and
services from others on the mar-
