What is Green Globes?

Green Globes is an online building and management audit that helps property owners and managers measure the environmental performance of their buildings against best practices in areas such as energy, water, hazardous materials, waste management and indoor environment. Using a confidential questionnaire, it generates an online report.

Green Globes is the newest addition to the BREEAM/Green Leaf suite of environmental assessment tools for buildings. Audit criteria are based on the internationally accepted Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method. (BREEAM), and BREEAM Canada, published by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) as document Plus 1132/BREEAM Canada.

The program’s core premise is that environmental leadership and responsibility make business sense. BREEAM/Green Leaf tools are used in hundreds of North American buildings and are currently applied by:

• Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) for all federally owned buildings.
• The Department of National Defence for the design of new buildings
• The Federation of Canadian Municipalities for the Municipal Building Retrofit Program
• The Hotel Association of Canada
• The City of Toronto Better Building Partnership
• Major property management firms

What is in the report?

• Eco-ratings for energy, water, resources (waste, site), indoor environment, due diligence issues and environmental management
• Potential dollar savings for energy and water
• Highlights of the building’s achievements
• Suggestions for improving the building
• Links to information on building systems and management.

To view sample screen shots of the report, go to Screen Shots.

What do Green Globes ratings mean?

The program provides two kinds of ratings:

Scores give the percentage of possible points that have been awarded for implementing best practices as identified in the internationally recognized criteria of BREEAM and BREEAM Canada published by the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) as Plus 1132/BREEAM Canada. Scores are given for each module and for each subsection.

Quintile ratings show performance relative to other buildings that have been assessed. These are provided only for buildings that have undergone third party verification. You can benchmark your building against buildings of similar age, type or geographical zone.

About Weightings. The UK BREEAM weightings are based on a series of consultations, which Building Research Establishment (BRE) conducted with 1,000 participants who were asked to assign environmental, social, and economic values to each of the building-related activities and their environmental impacts. In Canada, the BREEAM/Green Leaf/Green Globes tools use the mean of the British BREEAM, the Harvard and the EPA environmental weightings. The overall results are consistent with those of other assessment tools.

How long does it take to do the questionnaire?

You can finish the assessment in 2 to 3 hours. There are approximately 150 questions with “pop-up” explanations. Other than data from energy and water bills, most questions require only a simple “yes” or “no” response. To view sample screen shots of the questionnaire, go to Screen Shots.

How much does it cost?

There is a charge of $250 Cdn. per building assessment which pays for the maintenance and development of this site. This covers data input, generation of the report and report print-out and access to the data and online resources for one year. Reductions for building portfolios are negotiable.

Four Simple Steps
Step 1	Select your building type
Step 2	Register on line. The Canadian Energy Efficiency Alliance will contact you to arrange a method of payment.
Step 3	Complete the questionnaire.
Step 4	Review the report. You can update your report as you make improvements to your building.