New Building Assessment Program Unveiled in British Columbia

After years of development, the Building Environmental Performance Assessment Criteria (BEPAC) program is up and running. The system is designed as a voluntary rating program for commercial and institutional buildings, in which building owners can choose to have their property assessed by the independent BEPAC Foundation, and rated on a range of environmental categories. Intended to offer building buyers and users an independent measure of a structure’s environmental performance, BEPAC is similar in purpose to the U.K.’s Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM—see EBN

Vol. 1, No. 2). BEPAC’s assessment methodology is much more detailed than BREEAM’s, however.