United States. The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) has launched a new certification that sets the first standard for the design of buildings and communities that resist and recover from natural disasters, such as floods, tornadoes, droughts and wildfires.
Mahesh Ramanujam, president and CEO of USGBC and Green Business Certification Inc. (GBCI) announced the new rugged design rating system, called RELi (pronounced 'trust'), during an opening summit at the Greenbuild Convention in Boston.
"Designing with resilience in mind is crucial to developing sustainable buildings, communities and cities. We need to increase awareness, increase capacity and adopt resilience in our built environment if we really want to achieve a sustainable future for all," Ramanujam said.
Ramanujam said GBCI will verify project certification under the RELi standard, develop an associated professional credentialing program and scale "this mission to the global market."
RELi was developed by the Institute for Market Transformation towards Sustainability (MTS) to help design teams plan for risks and emergencies that could reduce energy and heat, or compromise a building's functionality. RELi has been developed for more than two years.
Learn more about RELi in http://c3livingdesign.org/?page_id=5110
