by Shane Henson — April 2, 2012—The International Code Council (ICC) recently announced the availability of the 2012 International Green Construction Code (IgCC), its new model code for constructing and remodeling buildings that is expected to make buildings more efficient, reduce waste, and have a positive impact on health, safety and community welfare.
For more than 100 years, building codes in the United States have evolved to incorporate critical safeguards for building occupants based on the most current building science, says the ICC. More recently, communities have been calling for a regulatory tool that offers minimum safeguards against building-related risks for safe and sustainable construction, and complements voluntary rating systems. Several state and local jurisdictions already have taken this direction by putting into place early versions of the IgCC that were released during the development of the code.
The IgCC is the first model code to include sustainability measures for an entire construction project and its site—from design, through construction, certificate of occupancy and beyond. It establishes minimum green requirements for buildings. The IgCC offers flexibility to jurisdictions that adopt the code by establishing several levels of compliance, starting with the core provisions of the code, and then offering “jurisdictional requirement” options that can be customized to fit the needs of a local community. A jurisdiction can also require higher performance through the use of “project electives” provisions.
The code acts as an overlay to the existing set of International Codes, including provisions of the International Energy Conservation Code and ICC-700, the National Green Building Standard, and incorporates ASHRAE Standard 189.1 as an alternate path to compliance. The IgCC provides model code language that establishes a baseline for new and existing buildings related to energy conservation, water efficiency, site impacts, building waste, material resource efficiency and other sustainability measures. The IgCC will be updated alongside the other model codes developed through the Code Council’s open, transparent, and consensus-based code development process, says the ICC.
