To proactively address the negative impacts of climate change, a coalition of public and private sector leaders representing more than 300 organizations committed to promoting sustainability in the property sector, the Philippine Green Building Council, has launched BERDE Project, which stands for Building for Ecologically Responsive Design Excellence.
The PHILGBC, an alliance of leaders with corporate members and partners in the building industry, leads the action in greening. Its built environment in the Philippines with the objective to ensure a sustainable environment where everyone can live, work and play.
The program was established to develop the Philippines' own national voluntary green building projects in the country, inspire confidence and build trust in the industry.
The group also kicked off the Green Building Rating System, developed under the project, as a tool to assess, measure, monitor, and certify the performance of green building projects above and beyond existing national and local building and environmental laws, regulations, and mandatory standards.
The program is recognized by the Philippines government, through the Department of Energy, as the National Voluntary Green Building Rating System.
The PHILGBC developed the BERDE Buildings Version 4.2.0 rating tool as a compliance and policy support tool to measure the performance of buildings above and beyond building and environmental laws, regulations, and mandatory standards.
The rating tool was also developed as a guidance tool as the project's User Guide is made freely available online and may be used in guiding the design, construction, and operations of projects in a resource-efficient, economically viable and socially responsible manner.
The program is aligned with the global climate action campaign of the World GBC.
And together with about 70 national Green Building Council around the world, the World GBC is leading the decarbonization of the built environment and are working with the national GBCs to "develop tools, programs and resources to promote the urgency and achievability of net zero carbon buildings and build industry capacity to deliver them."
There are 3.10 million square meters of total gross floor area from 78 BERDE projects registered for BERDE Certification in the country.
During month-long Building Green 2022 conference this month, the PHILGBC will be hosting Episode 10: The BERDE Day on 19 September 2022, to present case studies on BERDE certified projects where project owners will discuss the sustainability performances of their projects and will share common technological and regulatory challenges to certification and strategies in navigating them.
In addition, Episode 11: The Professionals, will be on 20 to 21 September.
The BERDE Professionals Basics Training Course is the formal accreditation program for professionals and project proponents on the program's rating scheme. Individuals that pass the qualifying examination for the course are recognized as Certified BERDE professionals.
