There is increasing harmonization among the good environmental practices which are applied at the design, construction and operations phases of non-residential buildings. However, the number of references for assessing and certifying environmental performances of buildings continues to increase!

These certification systems, which can be private or associative, are shown in the following table:

•   Main references

BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method)	United Kingdom, 1990
Energy Performance Certification	Europe, 1993
LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)	United States,1998
EEWH	Taiwan, 1999
Green Star	Australia, 2003
CASBEE (Comprehensive Assessment System for Building Environmental Efficiency)	Japan, 2003
MINERGY	Switzerland, 2000
HQE (Haute qualité environnementale – high environmental quality)	France, 2000 for service sector buildings  Extensions scheduled for 2008 for the logistics sector

All these systems certify environmental quality of buildings based on methods similar to ISO certification. Yet, it can be difficult to compare them, for their demands can vary depending on the environmental targets (water, energy, CO2 impact, comfort, health, safety … ).

Nevertheless, even though considerations of the reality of the economic stakes in favor of sustainable development are in their early stages, these systems nevertheless constitute an important step on the path to better design and construction of professional buildings.