An Examination of the Recertification Processes of Building Certification Systems

Building certification systems have facilitated the spread and adoption of green building practices. Today, a diverse collection of certification systems is being created and implemented around the globe. While these certification systems identify buildings that were designed to be energy efficient, a number of criticisms have called attention to the variation of actual energy performance from predicted energy performance of certified buildings, questioning their legitimacy. In this paper, we examined the post-certification processes that eleven building certification systems use to account for the operational performance of certified buildings. We found that most certification systems have decoupled new building certification from existing building certification, and problems arise when there is no routine process to transition from one to the other. We identify recertification as a best practice in facilitating this transition, thus ensuring the continual energy efficiency of certified buildings.