Green Building Certifications for Operational Buildings: Which to Choose?

Since the launch of BREEAM in 1990, green building certifications have evolved from being primarily design and construction-focused to assessing how buildings actually perform once they are in use. Today, certifications for operational buildings play a vital role in verifying sustainability, improving efficiency, and supporting sustainability goals.

With a growing array of standards and rating systems available, understanding which certification best fits a particular building or portfolio has become an important strategic decision for owners and investors.

Green building certification is not just a badge of honour. It’s a strategic mechanism for managing risk, improving performance, and adding value. Certified buildings consistently demonstrate lower energy use, reduced operational costs, improved occupant wellbeing, and, ultimately, enhanced market value.

For investors and asset owners, certification provides third-party assurance that sustainability objectives are being achieved in practice.

Why Certify Operational Buildings?

Certification offers independent verification of a building’s performance, providing credibility and confidence to investors, occupiers, and other stakeholders. It helps identify areas for improvement, supports ongoing performance management, and ensures that sustainability claims are backed by data.

Crucially, certification aligns closely with sustainability reporting frameworks such as GRESB, helping organisations demonstrate accountability and transparency.

At EVORA, we view certification as a process of continuous improvement rather than a one-off achievement. Our work with clients demonstrates that, when implemented strategically, certification not only validates performance but actively drives it, leading to more efficient buildings, happier occupants, and stronger sustainability results.

Choosing the Right Certification Scheme

With multiple certification schemes available, selecting the right one depends on your organisation’s goals, geography, and asset type.

BREEAM In-Use remains one of the most established and recognised schemes in Europe, assessing the environmental, social, and management performance of operational buildings. LEED O+M offers a globally consistent framework, well-suited to portfolios with international reach, particularly popular in North America. DGNB provides a comprehensive, life-cycle-based assessment, balancing environmental, social, and economic quality.

For those prioritising occupant wellbeing, Fitwel and the WELL Building Standard focus specifically on health, comfort, and productivity.

Arc Performance Certificates and complementary frameworks such as SmartScore or ActiveScore provide additional insight into data-driven performance, technology readiness, and mobility infrastructure.

Each system brings different strengths. BREEAM and DGNB are often preferred for their breadth and local recognition in Europe; LEED provides global comparability; and WELL and Fitwel are ideal where wellbeing is a core value proposition.

The best choice depends on your priorities, market expectations, and capacity for ongoing performance management.

How Green Building Certifications Can Improve Your GRESB Score

Green building certifications help your GRESB score by awarding points for the share of floor area certified at project delivery and in day-to-day operations. Together they can add up to 8.5 points in the main Real Estate Assessment – but only if maximum (whole building) coverage is achieved within the GRESB weighted time factor guidelines.

For investors, those points touch risk, value, and reputation all at once: fewer surprises in disclosure, stronger signals to tenants and lenders, and a cleaner story for boards.

“If you want a fast lift in scores, certify the big assets in countries and sub-types where your peers are already at high coverage, and clear any validation gaps early. Plan recertifications, register live developments, and stick to schemes on GRESB’s current list for the reporting year in question. That way, you turn plaques on walls into points on the table, and into better buildings.” – Tatiana Medaru, Green Building Certification Analyst.

Certification as a Catalyst for Performance

We believe certification should be viewed not as an end point, but as the start of a continuous journey toward improvement.

By integrating certification into asset management and operational processes, organisations can strengthen resilience, enhance stakeholder trust, and achieve measurable sustainability outcomes.

Green building certification is a powerful catalyst for change. When supported by robust data, strategic insight, and expert guidance, it enables owners and investors to translate ambition into performance — creating buildings that are efficient, healthy, and future-ready.

EVORA’s Approach

Our Green Building Certification service is designed to make certification a driver of long-term value. We guide clients through every stage, from choosing the most appropriate system to managing assessments and liaising with certification bodies.

EVORA’s experienced team delivers:

• Guidance on scheme selection
• Compared current performance with certification requirements
• Detailed gap analyses
• Performance benchmarking
• Advise on energy efficiency, water savings, indoor air quality, and waste reduction
• Improvement roadmaps with strategic guidance
• Recommend retrofit or operational improvements
• Final Green Building Certificate
• Tracked deadlines
• Support with recertification cycles
• Portfolio certification management
• Training and awareness sessions for property managers and tenants

This ensures each certification aligns with wider sustainability and asset management strategies.

We also help clients compare different certification systems, evaluating their relative benefits in the context of asset location, portfolio strategy, and investor requirements. This comparative approach enables our clients to make informed, strategic decisions that go beyond compliance to deliver tangible performance gains.

Our work consistently demonstrates that certification, when embedded in long-term sustainability planning, delivers significant returns, from reduced operational costs to improved tenant satisfaction and stronger market reputation.

Ready to unlock the full value of your building portfolio?
EVORA’s experts can help you select, achieve, and maintain the right green building certifications to meet your sustainability and performance goals.