December 22, 2009 | GBI Insight Home

GGP and GGA Designations Demonstrate Commitment to Sustainability,
Provide Enhanced Knowledge and Marketing Opportunities

Green Globes Professionals

There are numerous reasons why many design, construction, and facilities operations professionals have chosen to pursue the Green Globes Professional (GGP) designation recently introduced by GBI.

• First is the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to sustainable building design and operations, thus differentiating themselves from other industry professionals. With an accreditation from the Green Building Initiative, GGPs are affiliating themselves with an established organization that, over the past five years, has helped make green building accessible to the mainstream commercial design and building community.
• Second is the opportunity to receive training and learn about new approaches in the evolving world of building sustainability assessment, improvement, and certification. Candidates broaden their skill set with in-depth knowledge of how to measure the sustainability of commercial buildings utilizing the nationally recognized Green Globes protocol. Further, they learn about measuring and improving building sustainability performance throughout the building life cycle—from design and construction, through ongoing operation of occupied structures.
• The third reason to pursue a GGP designation is business development. Green Globes Professionals are able to offer additional services to clients in the areas of sustainable design evaluation and improvement utilizing the Green Globes for New Construction and Green Globes for Continual Improvement of Existing Buildings online tools, as well as project management and facilitation related to Green Globes building certification. The GGP designation is an asset in marketing and pursuing these types of business opportunities because clients know it represents formal training, testing, and credentialing by the GBI for services related to Green Globes. With the detailed training and understanding of the Green Globes building certification process, industry professionals that obtain the GGP designation are uniquely positioned to offer a proven alternative to traditional costly and time consuming building certification approaches, thus enabling them to attract a wider range of clients and provide a broad array of service options relating to sustainability.
• Finally, employees, managers, or principals in organizations that build and operate commercial buildings may wish to pursue the Green Globes Professional designation to enable their organization to more quickly, efficiently and cost effectively facilitate building certification projects with Green Globes. By having trained and credentialed employees on staff, organizations taking large numbers of buildings through the certification process can flawlessly execute a building certification project with internal personnel performing those functions that would traditionally require external consultants and cost.

Green Globes Assessors

The number of buildings pursuing Green Globes rating and certification in the U.S. has been growing rapidly and, as such, the GBI needs to expand the number of assessors who are qualified and authorized to perform the third-party assessments that are a required part of the certification process.  With the goal of ensuring the credibility, objectivity, and quality of third-party assessment services, the GBI created the Green Globes Assessor program.  The GGA program formalizes the process for applications, candidate screening, training, testing, credentialing, and mentoring assignments.  Those distinguished industry professionals that are selected and complete the requirements to obtain the GGA credential will help the GBI assess, certify, and improve the sustainability performance of buildings pursuing Green Globes rating and certification.

As with the GGP designation, there are numerous reasons why many design, construction, and facilities operations professionals have chosen to pursue the GGA designation recently introduced by the GBI.

• Green Globes Assessors are recognized as distinguished experts in the field. GBI requires that candidates have at least 10 years of directly applicable industry experience pertaining to commercial building design, engineering, construction, or operations as well as certain educational and professional licensure requirements. They must also have materially participated in building sustainability projects and provide evidence of training in green building and operations. 
• Further, since GGAs are trained and tested in their understanding of the Green Globes protocol, and will apply this knowledge to award points that determine a building’s Green Globes rating, they stand apart from other credentialed professionals whose role is to facilitate the completion of documentation.  Having this prestigious designation can also facilitate marketing, consulting practice business development, or new client acquisition, providing the projects in question are unrelated to a Green Globes third-party assessment/client.

As a group, Green Globes Assessors are passionate about protecting the environment, improving the performance of new and/or existing buildings, and helping to ‘green’ the nationwide building infrastructure.  One of the most important aspects of being a GGA is to develop and deliver improvement suggestions to clients as part of the post-assessment review.  By meeting with sustainability-minded clients, reviewing their data submissions, and factually verifying the design, constructed features, or performance data documentation supplied, Green Globes Assessors are able to play an active role in ensuring credible and continuous improvement in building performance. 

• Finally, GGAs have an opportunity to earn income performing Green Globes third-party assessments as a contractor to GBI.

While there is no guarantee from the GBI that those obtaining the GGA credential will be formally assigned to any or a certain number of building assessments, GBI has growing order demand for building certifications that will require additional assessors for fulfilment.  

Those candidates who complete the program requirements sign a contract services agreement with GBI, agree to conform to a strict conflict of interest policy, and then are eligible for assignment by GBI.  Third-party assessment assignments are generally scheduled 2-4 weeks ahead of time, may be accepted or declined by the GGA, and require about 16-40 hours of total work.  Each assignment involves review of design, construction, and/or operations documentation, data entered online by the client/GGP, an on-site visit to the client’s facility, the writing of reports and client letters, and communication with client and GBI to complete the assessment.

For both GGPs and GGAs, formal certification in turn leads to greater marketing opportunities, in terms of services provided and the ability to assist those pursuing a Green Globes rating. The main difference between the two designations is that GGPs are qualified to help Green Globes users navigate the process and are paid by the client, either as consultants or employees (for example, if an owner of multiple buildings decides to have a GGP on staff). GGAs are contracted by GBI and act on the organization’s behalf by performing third-party assessments, which all buildings must undergo before receiving a certified Green Globes rating.

With an estimated 20% (or less) of the marketplace currently pursuing building sustainability, there is tremendous growth potential for consultants, facility managers and others marketing professional services in support of a system as uniquely applicable to a full range of buildings as Green Globes.

To support these opportunities, GGPs and GGAs may use the applicable designation on their business communications and marketing collateral, and also receive a listing in the GBI directory of accredited professionals.

For more information on the required qualifications, training, testing and benefits associated with the GGP or GGA designation, please visit the Personnel Certifications section of the GBI website.