2025.04.14 |
Sustainability is essential to optimizing building performance, ensuring efficiency and comfort. However, navigating how to effectively implement building sustainability measures can be overwhelming, with an abundance of different green initiatives and solutions to focus on. The BOMA BEST program is helping to ease this process for building owners and managers, offering a clear framework on how to assess and improve sustainability for all building types. Managed by the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA), BOMA BEST encourages smart, sustainable solutions for existing buildings. Since its launch in 2005, BOMA BEST has grown into North America’s largest environmental assessment and certification program for existing buildings.
Who Can Apply?
To be eligible for BOMA BEST certification, a building must have been operational for at least 12 months. The program covers a broad range of commercial building types including:
-
- Office Buildings
- Enclosed Shopping Centres
- Health Care Facilities
- Light Industrial Properties
- Multi-Unit Residential Buildings
- Open-Air Retail
- Universal
Two Paths to Certification: BOMA BEST Sustainable vs Smart
BOMA BEST Sustainable
This stream focuses on the environmental and operational sustainability of a building. Promoting the continuous improvement of building operations and maintenance, it guides owners and operators on how to decarbonize, reduce water and waste, retrofit, and prepare against climate risk. Certification is achieved through a structured questionnaire that covers:
- Energy and Carbon
- Water
- Indoor Air Quality & Hazards
- Accessibility & Wellness
- Custodial & Waste
- Resilience & Site Planning
💡 How QEA Tech Can Help
QEA Tech has a strong track record for helping clients achieve the energy and carbon related requirements of this certification. Detailed and accurate data on the energy consumption and carbon emissions of a building is essential to achieving this certification with the completion of building envelope assessments, deep energy and carbon retrofit studies, quantification and benchmarking of carbon emissions, and third-party certification of a building’s energy use and carbon emissions being required. The implementation of low-cost envelope retrofits and evidence of improved energy efficiency due to these measures is also necessary for full certification. QEA Tech’s AI-powered building envelope audits can play a critical role in helping buildings achieve the BOMA BEST Sustainable certification by offering:
- Proprietary AI-driven assessments that deliver precise data on energy loss, carbon emissions, and actual effective U-values for the entire building envelope.
- Exact identification of a wide range of building envelope issues.
- Custom, tailored retrofit recommendations with details on potential energy savings, implementation cost, and payback periods.
- Post-retrofit verification audits to provide evidence of improved energy efficiency and reduced carbon emissions.
BOMA BEST Smart
As buildings embrace new and innovative technologies, BOMA BEST Smart was created to guide the digital transformation of buildings, supporting the integration of intelligent systems to drive sustainability, enhance tenant experiences, and deliver better financial value.
Focus areas included in the questionnaire for this certification include:
- Security and Safety
- Operations and Management
- Network and Systems Integration
- End-User Experience
- Reporting and Analysis
💡 How QEA Tech Can Help
QEA Tech supports deliverables required for the Smart certification by providing:
- Energy efficiency analytics and reporting related to building envelope energy loss.
- Carbon emissions reporting, detailing the total carbon emissions for each building envelope element as well as the total amount of preventable emissions throughout the envelope.
QEA Tech’s use of AI software and drones allows for our audits to be highly scalable and non-intrusive, allowing for building owners to meet the sustainability reporting requirements for their portfolio efficiently and cost-effectively.
Understanding the Levels of Certification
BOMA BEST awards certifications based on a building’s performance across several benchmarks. The better a building performs on the detailed questionnaire, the higher the level of certification it can achieve. Certifications range from:
- Baseline: 0%–29% of questionnaire requirements completed.
- Bronze: 30%–59% of questionnaire requirements completed.
- Silver: 60%–79% of questionnaire requirements completed.
- Gold: 80%–89% of questionnaire requirements completed.
- Platinum: 90%–100% of questionnaire requirements completed.
Baseline practices (minimum requirements for all buildings) must be met to achieve any level of certification. There are 12 baseline practices for the Sustainable Buildings Certification and 5 baseline practices for the Smart Buildings Certification, with baseline practices being listed at the beginning of each respective questionnaire.
Next Steps for Pursuing BOMA BEST
Whether you’re focused on cutting costs, digitizing building operations, or achieving sustainability goals, BOMA BEST provides guidance on the steps necessary to achieve optimal building performance. Contact QEA Tech to learn more about how we can support your BOMA BEST certification and get a free quote on a building envelope audit.
