Green building, or sustainable building, is a multidisciplinary approach that seeks to use environmentally responsible and resource-efficient processes throughout the entire life cycle of the building, from choosing its location to the stages of planning, construction, operation, maintenance, renovation, and demolition.
The Green Building Standard in Israel – Israeli Standard (SI) 5281 – was written in 2005 and was updated in 2011 and 2016. In 2013, it was decided at the Forum15 to gradually implement the standard as a mandatory specification for new construction in the authorities of the forum’s members. In 2014 it was decided, together with the government housing director, that the construction and/or renovation of government buildings would be done in accordance with the standard. In 2020, the National Planning and Construction Council approved a regulation requiring the construction of new buildings according to the standard. Accordingly, in March 2022, the Green Building Standard became mandatory, and it will be gradually applied to most new construction until September 2023.
The standard addresses various aspects of buildings’ planning and construction process and sets minimum quality requirements. As such constitutes a marker and catalyst for higher quality and more advanced construction, and has a beneficial effect on the construction market in Israel. However, the standard does not guarantee the treatment of all the aspects included in it because it requires compliance with several threshold clauses and allows the accumulation of additional points according to the planner’s choice. In practice, the scoring in the standard is done for sections that are easy to implement and economically viable, while other aspects, both those included in the standard and those that are not, remain untreated.
The team of experts who participated in the forum put forward several important recommendations to ensure the continued development of the field of green building in Israel. See English abstract.
