Benchmark Study on Green Buildings - Royal Architectural Institute ...

The Japan Green Building Council (JGBC) (www.jgbc.com/) was founded in 1998 with
83 members. The JGBC, with 126 members to date, is currently more of a service-based
green building council compared to others such as the USGBC. It offers free services,
such as energy audits and surveys measuring surface temperature, whether wood is
properly engineered or not, water use and treatment, and lighting efficiency. The goal is
to gather data in order to prove the validity of JGBC with this information in hand. The
JGBC is also a member of the World Green Building Council (WGBC).
The Japanese green building movement is younger than initiatives in many other
countries and Japanese architects continue to lack considerable interest in green building.
Currently architects design for ecological resistance or modern attractiveness, but these
styles are also changing to incorporate more green practices and procedures. To date, the
JGBC does not have a rating system for green buildings. Additionally, the Japanese
government is helping to increase green building awareness as it demands that new
buildings be green and that older buildings be greened. Japanese materials manufacturers
are also beginning to make green products, but this continues to be at a relatively low
level. Cost-competition is very important among Japanese buyers because it is usually
more expensive to obtain products from abroad. About a quarter of the companies
registered under the JGBC are based outside of Japan, and want to sell their products to
the growing Japanese green building market. So, while the main goals of the JGBC
include the promotion of green building awareness and the provision of greening services,
encouraging Japanese manufacturers to create more green products is also a large concern.
The aim of the JGBC is to reduce the environmental impact of the nation’s buildings
through improvements in planning, construction and waste disposal. Certified as a
national nonprofit organization in 2003, its website already receives over 1,000 hits per
month and membership is steadily increasing.
Apart from its building auditing and surveying services, the JGBC has not yet started
many other green building projects or procedures. Apart from a handful national green
building seminars, the JGBC has so far played the role of a participant in initiatives put
forward by other countries. Such initiatives include the 1999 Green Building Tour in the
United States and various World-GBC meetings. But for a country that looks to gradually
build up its own green building council, participating in initiatives started by other
leading countries and learning from them is certainly an effective approach that will make
the JGBC a leader in the near future.
There is also another large green building organization in Japan. The Japan Sustainable
Building Consortium (JSBC) was established in April 2001 as a joint framework between
industry, government and academia, under the auspice of the Japanese Ministry of Land,
Infrastructure and Transport. The research activities of the JSBC have already provided
numerous positive outcomes, the most important being the Comprehensive Assessment
System for Building Environmental Efficiency (CASBEE). CASBEE is designed to
evaluate the environmental performance of buildings – similar to how the LEED and
BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method)
systems function. The intent is for CASBEE (along with LEED and BREEAM in their
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