Certification

Only the Best Organizations Can Deliver the Best Projects
 
Today, clients demand more than ever before. Whether their target is LEED, Net Zero, the Living Building Challenge, or making a 2030 Commitment - the stakes are high. Delivering “LEED on demand” is simply not enough anymore.
 
Differentiation is key. Everyone makes claims when it comes to sustainability and green building. Yet many companies struggle to maintain momentum, get stuck on particular challenges, or end up achieving “random acts of sustainability” but not the comprehensive integration needed to produce consistent and optimal results. This concern for delivering consistent, high quality sustainability services is why many building owners have endorsed the SPI Certification program.
 
Change You Can Measure
 
The SPI Certification process provides companies with a roadmap and methodology to improve the effectiveness of their organizations and the performance of their projects. As an independent, trusted 3rd party, SPI gives a supportive “push” from the outside to hold companies accountable, support leadership in their efforts, and weave disparate initiatives into a cohesive tapestry of sustainability and competitive advantage. SPI continually shares best practices and successful strategies and provides metrics and processes to keep the pressure on – just enough – to cause positive change. This isn’t just any kind of change; it’s change that can be measured, recognized and taken to the bank.
 
The Five Performance Areas
 
We’ve been helping companies transform themselves for over a decade, so we know what the ingredients of a truly green company are and how to measure them.  It all boils down to five key performance areas. Click here to review the complete SPI Criteria.
  1. Leadership: It all starts here. This is about the commitment, vision and clarity about what sustainability means to your company beyond marketing claims. It’s about establishing accountability structures, well-defined goals, and strategies to meet them. If you have strong leadership, everyone at every level in the company knows that sustainability is a priority and understands how their role supports it to meet your collective goals.
     
  2. Partnering: Your product is only as good as the team that creates it. Care and proactive nurturing of critical relationships is necessary to achieve your goals.
     
  3. Infrastructure: Human resources, information technology, communication, professional development, internal standards and resources must all be aligned with the company’s goals for project performance to be realized.
     
  4. Project Delivery: Relying on a few “rock star” employees to be the green champions doesn’t work anymore. Every team, on every project, has to deliver a consistent, high quality sustainability service, not just one measured in LEED plaques. Collaborative processes and consistent methodology are key to achieving the consistency and goals that clients demand.
     
  5. Outcomes: It’s all about results. Measuring your corporate footprint and the performance of your projects and continually raising the bar is the best way to demonstrate quality and commitment to your clients.
The Roadmap to Continuous Improvement has four steps: Registration, Assessment, Planning and Filling Gaps, and Audit. Read about the process in more detail.
 
Getting From Here to There
 
Most companies are continuously working to institutionalize sustainability into their companies. The SPI Certification Criteria are a compendium of best practices and success factors that can be used to accelerate this transformation process. The SPI Certification process provides companies with a roadmap and methodology to improve the effectiveness of their organizations and to improve the performance of their buildings.
 
At SPI, we are all about you: accelerating your company’s path to success, giving you the tools and resources you need, and recognizing your achievements. We make it a priority to keep SPI free from unnecessary bureaucracy and cumbersome documentation. This allows us to invest in your success. We’ll help you get there.

 

Criteria

Measure Twice, Build Once

The SPI Criteria were born out of more than a decade of work with clients of all shapes and sizes and learning from their sucesses and yes, failures. As we continue to learn from our clients and receive input from our community, we will update the criteria to reflect the best available strategies to achieve higher levels of performance and profitability. Contact us with questions or recommendations.

Process

A Roadmap To Truly Green Practice

SPI provides companies who design, build and manage the built environment with a roadmap to truly green practice. The Certification program validates the capability of these companies to deliver consistent, high quality sustainability services as core to profitability. Companies in the Certification program generally fall into one of two camps:
  1. Companies seeking to validate their existing capability and to be recognized for their leadership.
  2. Companies aiming to accelerate the transformation of their practice to make sustainability service delivery a competitive advantage.

Sign Up

Letter of Engagement

Please review this letter of engagement carefully so that you clearly understand the SPI Certification process and expectations. There is link to the online sign up form at the bottom of the page. If you’ve already reviewed this letter, you can skip to the sign up form.