BOMA Canada announces shift to BOMA BEST 3.0

by Brianna Crandall — March 21, 2016—Years in the works, BOMA Canada recently announced that the organization will officially unveil BOMA BEST 3.0 at BOMEX 2016 in Regina on September 20-22, 2016. Applicants eager to certify to this new standard can begin as early as July 2016, as part of the soft launch.

The BOMA BEST 3.0 environmental certification program for commercial buildings replaces Version 2 and is said to represent fresh, cutting-edge content on a brand new and vastly improved software platform.

BOMA Canada has retained Stantec to lead the overhaul of all BOMA BEST modules, assessment categories, BEST Practices, questions and scoring. Extensive stakeholder engagement is ensuring that BOMA BEST 3.0 remains “by the industry, for the industry.”

The overhaul also includes new questionnaires for the Office, Light Industrial, Open Air Retail and Shopping Centre modules, plus a ground-breaking Universal module.

Among many other upgrades, BOMA BEST 3.0 will normalize energy consumption and improve energy and water benchmarking methodologies, says BOMA Canada.

BOMA BEST 3.0’s new platform will be flexible, user-friendly and highly customizable to meet users’ needs. Beyond certifying a building under BOMA BEST, key components also include:

  • Ongoing Building Management Access so users can continuously update all metrics after certification;
  • Continuous utility benchmarking and monitoring;
  • Enhanced reporting capabilities;
  • Portfolio views for multiple buildings; and
  • Visible scores and scenario generation to project a proposed initiative’s impact on its BOMA BEST score.

According to BOMA Canada, September 30, 2016, will be the last date to begin certification / recertification on Version 2; as of October 1, all new applications will begin only on BOMA BEST 3.0. By February 28, 2017, all Version 2 assessments must be “locked,” and by March 1, Version 2 will no longer be available, with final verifications and awards under Version 2 by March 31.

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