Green buildings: How green the label?

Much is written nowadays about 'green buildings', although clear concepts and descriptions are generally absent from the discussion. Building environmental assessment methods (BEAMs) have been developed to give a rating that provides a more holistic assessment of building performance. To appreciate the outcome of an assessment, ie what a building ecolabel signifies in terms of environmental performance, it is necessary to take full account of the environmental aspects that are assessed, the standards of performance required, the relative weightings of each aspect, and the overall score required to achieve a specified grade. Based on a review of several well-established BEAMs this paper seeks to help the reader weigh up the relative 'greenness' of a particular building eco-label.