Voluntary Mexican standard for sustainable building: environmental criteria and minimum requirements

Abstract

This paper presents the elaboration process and scope of the voluntary Mexican Standard for Sustainable Building (NMX-AA-164-SCFI-2013), headed by the Environment and Natural Resources Ministry. The NMX-AA-164-SCFI-2013 standard emerges from the Mexican government's need to have a regulatory instrument that impacts the current construction practices, leading them to a more sustainable model of edification, which contributes to the environmental protection, the integration of buildings within the city and its surroundings, the health and comfort of the building occupants and people's productivity. A multidisciplinary working group was jointed for drafting the document, comprising members of academy, industry, civil society and federal and local government. The starting point was the existing regulation and then setting higher levels of environmental performance and not only in the traditional schemes, such as energy efficiency and water use, but increasing its range by adding a new vision to the relationship between buildings and the city and with the environment, also the social responsibility and a life cycle approach. The Standard focuses on five different topics: Territory, Energy, Water, Materials and Waste, Environmental Quality and Social Responsibility. Each of these topics was established with mandatory and optional components. Once we have described the content of the Standard, we do a comparative analysis with other international certifications, especially with BREAM and LEED, looking for convergence points and the features given for the national context.