Green Building Organisations to End Confusion Over Sustainable Materials Assessments

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20 October 2025

Major building rating systems, including the Building Research Establishment and the International WELL Building Institute, want to reform how sustainable building products and materials are assessed.

The new global coalition aims to create consistency across rating systems, including BREEAM, Green Star, LEED, Living Building Challenge and WELL. The group says it will achieve this by creating a shared language for building materials assessments and better alignment of data and metrics.

Construction materials account for 50 per cent of all raw materials extracted globally, yet manufacturers, designers and building owners don’t always have the necessary visibility over whether chosen materials are genuinely sustainable or not, making benchmarking and measurement difficult.

The reforms will allow clearer access to verified sustainability claims, allowing stakeholders in the built environment to compare product information.

The partnership includes: The Building Research Establishment (BRE), The Green Building Council of Australia (GBCA), mindful MATERIALS, the International Living Future Institute (ILFI), the International WELL Building Institute (IWBI) and the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC).

“[The] industry needs a clear and consistent signal on what good performance looks like,” said GBCA Chief Products Officer Sarah Zaleski. 

“This partnership will support the global supply chain and make it easier for building projects everywhere to choose materials that drive better outcomes for people and the planet.”

Picture: a photograph of a person laying concrete blocks with a trowel. Image Credit: Unsplash

Article written by Ella Tansley | Published 20 October 2025

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