About Green Building Initiative

Vision

Sustainable, healthy, and resilient buildings for all.

GBI’s Mission

Green Building Initiative (GBI) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization whose mission is:
“To improve the built environment’s impact on climate and society.“

Mission-Critical Objectives & Principles

GBI’s primary objectives and principles are to:

1. Decrease carbon emissions and support growth of carbon neutral buildings.
2. Improve water efficiency through strategies that include reducing consumption, increasing recycling, and using alternative sources of water.
3. Promote health and well-being through excellence in planning for design, construction, use, accessibility, operations, maintenance, and low impact deconstruction of buildings.
4. Pursue the goal of zero waste using life-cycle thinking to reduce, reuse, recover, and recycle while emphasizing responsible design, production, purchasing, and consumption.
5. Support the use and advancement of smart buildings and other technology in achieving sustainability, health, and resilience objectives.
6. Provide quality education that supports a diverse, equitable, and inclusive workforce for all levels of learners.
7. Foster respectful and inclusive communities where transparency, consensus, due process, diversity, equity, inclusivity, openness, and innovation are guiding tenets.
8. Encourage collaborative reporting on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives and U.N. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) toward collective action and achievement of positive, measurable impacts.

Through careful investment of its resources, GBI is advancing toward a global governance and membership structure with tools and services in multiple languages for increased global impact.

Our Approach

GBI makes aspirational goals achievable through user-friendly tools built upon comprehensive standards and supported by outstanding staff and expert assessors. As a nonprofit community, we are educators and coaches first, supporting performance improvement of all buildings.

• Our education programs support lifelong learning about the intersection between buildings, people, and our planet.
• We credential individuals and certify buildings in the pursuit of continuous improvement of our communities.
• We foster collaborative approaches to achieve global sustainability, health, and resilience goals.
• We deliver our services with a central commitment to transparency, consensus, due process, diversity, equity, inclusion, openness, and innovation.
• We are member-driven leaders mentoring a future generation that will continue our mission and ensure the viability of our organization.
• We reinvest continuously to provide user-friendly technology to support our community.
• We support reporting on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals and will report as an organization in support of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals.

Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging at GBI

GBI believes that diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging (DEIB) are critical to a welcoming, effective, and successful organization. We are committed to taking purposeful actions to deconstruct barriers and build opportunities for learning, change, and accountability. GBI commits to fostering growth, measuring effectiveness, and demonstrating accountability through annual reporting on efforts to integrate and reinforce DEIB throughout our activities and audiences, including the Board of Directors, staff, members, assessors, external stakeholders, and community.

A Brief History of GBI and Green Globes

Today, GBI is an international nonprofit organization and American National Standards Institute (ANSI) Accredited Standards Developer dedicated to improving the built environment’s impact on climate and society. Founded in 2004, GBI is the global provider of the Green Globes® and federal Guiding Principles Compliance building certification and assessment programs. The organization has certified more than 630 million square feet of commercial and multifamily space with a footprint growing outside of North America and into global markets. As a membership organization, GBI issues professional credentials, including the Green Globes Professional (GGP), Green Globes Emerging Professional (GGEP), and Guiding Principles Compliance Professional (GPCP). To learn more about opportunities to become involved with GBI, contact info@thegbi.org or visit the GBI website at thegbi.org. 

GBI was incorporated in Oregon and earned tax exempt status from the U.S. International Revenue Service in March 2006, just 18 months after its founding in October 2004.

Originally focused on work with residential home builders, GBI’s founders identified a gap in the U.S. commercial building market. The rating system Green Globes, which had BREEAM Canada origins, was identified as a web-based tool and certification program that could meet the needs of U.S. commercial buildings and practitioners seeking practical approaches to green building. GBI licensed Green Globes for use in the U.S. market and committed to developing Green Globes further using an open, balanced, consensus-based technical review process that allowed due process for stakeholders.

To this end, GBI was the first commercial green building certification program developer to earn accreditation as a standards developer from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which happened in 2005. Following hundreds of public meetings and work by volunteer subject matter experts, an early version Green Globes earned approval as an American National Standard in 2010 (ANSI/GBI 01-2010: Green Building Assessment Protocol for Commercial Buildings). The standard was used as the basis for GBI’s Green Globes for New Construction 2013 program, and later it was updated and released in 2019 and again in 2021 as ANSI/GBI 01-2021: Green Globes Assessment Protocol for Design, New Construction, and Major Renovations, or more commonly, Green Globes for New Construction (NC) 2021. GBI’s second standard, ANSI/GBI 02-2023, Green Globes Assessment Protocol for Existing Buildings (Green Globes for Existing Buildings 2023) was published in the summer of 2023. Both standards are in Continuous Maintenance and are on a two-year revision cycle. 

Who Uses Green Globes?