DGNB - The German Sustainable Building Council
Sustainability is a crucial topic at the present time in the construction and real estate sectors. Increasingly, ecological, economical, and socio-cultural issues are focal points in the planning, construction, and operation of buildings. The German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB for “Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen”) is the partner you need to harmonize these aspects. With our certification system, we help you optimize and document the quality of your projects.Climate change, resource scarcity, and the financial crisis – society faces a wide range of challenges today and has to assume responsibility for current problems, rather than pass them on to future generations. As a result, sustainability has become a principle of our age. But sustainable development is only possible if ecological, economic, and social goals are equally emphasized and simultaneously pursued.
Buildings are responsible for approximately 30 % of raw material use and 40 % of energy consumption and carbon emissions worldwide. Sustainable building aims to systematically reduce these figures by focusing on future developments in these fields. At the same time, sustainable building provides social and economic benefits. In the summer of 2007, leading experts from various fields in the construction and real estate sectors therefore founded the German Sustainable Building Council.
The future is the present. The DGNB's goals.
The DGNB‘s constantly growing community of members shares one primary goal: the ongoing pursuit of sustainable, and therefore economically efficient, building practice. We do so by systematically sharing expertise, providing training for market players, and raising awareness about the issue among the general public. Furthermore, we work with our members to continually develop and advance the internationally acknowledged DGNB certificate for environmentally friendly, economically efficient, and user-friendly buildings.As a non-profit and non-governmental organization, the DGNB‘s bylaws stipulate that it serves the general good. To practice what we believe in, we primarily focus on developing criteria to increase the quality of future buildings in ecological, economic, socio-cultural, and technical terms. This enables building owners and investors not only to plan, construct, and operate their projects affordably and with minimal environmental impact, but also to promote the well-being of building occupants.
The core of our work. Developing the DGNB certification system.
The DGNB focuses heavily on the establishment and further developmet of its certification system. As a high-performance, transparent, and user-friendly tool for the assessment and certification of sustainable buildings, it is one of the leading systems worldwide, mainly due to its comprehensive quality concept, which takes equal account of economics, ecology, and socio-cultural aspects and is based on a holistic view of the building‘s entire lifecycle. It is therefore possible to define sustainability targets beginning in the planning phase.The results are future-oriented buildings with high quality standards documented by the DGNB certificate in gold, silver, or bronze – a quality labes of great value to the construction and real estate sectors. The DGNB System can also be used outside of Germany. Due to its conformity with present and future EU regulations it is the perfect tool to ensure high building quality and performance.
Certification and further training. The DGNB's core competence.
In its relatively short history, the DGNB has already managed to establish itself as a leading organization in the field of sustainable building. One major milestone on this path was the successful market launch of the DGNB Certification System in 2009 in Germany, followed shortly thereafter by its international launch. Currently, more than 270 projects in Germany and abroad received the DGNB certificate. A second factor in our success is the modular training of DGNB auditors, through which we open up new perspectives for participants in the promising future market of sustainable building. We have come up with a modular concept that takes account of the individual knowledge that participants already have, their objectives, and the dynamic development of the DGNB system. In the process, we only work with renowned third-party educational facilities, allowing us to offer comprehensive training.Keep growing. Even as a volunteer. The DGNB’s members.
The DGNB‘s importance and expertise continues to grow along with the number of its members. When it was founded, it already had 40 member organizations from the construction and real estate sectors. By the time its first event was organized at the beginning of 2008, that figure had risen to 121. Currently, the DGNB has more than 1,000 members. At the same time, a growing number of national and international building owners and investors have relied on the DGNB certification system to define their sustainability goals during the planning phase of their projects.The ongoing development of the DGNB certification system is one major reason for this success.A number of working groups continue to develop the certificate as their primary focus. Currently, more than 480 DGNB members from various sectors of sustainable building volunteer to contribute their knowledge to these committees. The strength of our system lies in this broad expertise and volunteer work.
