Major Building Certification Sysytems used in Finland

Abstract

In this final year project, the aim was to have a detailed description of major building certification systems used in Finland. The project also aims at finding what shared value exists between major certification systems used in Finland. Not only shared value, but also the real performance of certified buildings was among the main targets to be assessed in this final year project. To achieve the goal of the final year project, practical data collection and literature review was done.

The final year project clarified about three major certification systems used in Finland, LEED, BREEAM and Green Building Council’s performance Indicators. Since analyzing the performance of LEED and BREEAM certified buildings was among the aims of this project, several buildings were selected for the study. Green Building Council’s performance Indicators were chosen as an assessment tool for the inspection of the certified buildings.

The final year project revealed that the major certification systems used in Finland all share the same value of guiding projects to operate in an environmental friendly manner. Nevertheless, collecting data to examine the performance phase of LEED or BREEAM certified projects was challenging. The data collected was insignificant in order to draw a conclusion about the performance phase of selected buildings for the study. In the future, more intensive data collection is required to know more about the performance phase of building projects.