On September 25, 2008, the Board of Directors of the National Institute of Building Sciences appointed a Task Group to review the current systems in use across the United States for rating and certifying building performance and accrediting individual expertise. The Task Group was charged by the Board to seek input on these issues from a broad range of participants in the building sector as well as the developers and managers of these systems.

This report, released by the International Code Council (ICC), summarizes the findings of a Town Hall Meeting held during the 2014 ICC Annual Conference. The ICC engaged the Institute to conduct a nationwide survey of building code compliance professionals. The results of this first-of-its-kind demographic survey of code professionals confirmed the growing concern within the building industry about a pending retirement exodus. Eighty percent of the existing code professional workforce is expected to retire in the next 15 years, and more than 30 percent plan to do so within five years.

In this report, the Institute’s National Council of Governments on Building Codes and Standards (NCGBCS) examines effective strategies for promoting the adoption of existing building codes, as well as developing and implementing educational and training programs for owners, builders, contractors, design professionals and, most importantly, code enforcers. NCGBCS also addresses some of the implementation challenges and enforcement issues, and the technical changes necessary to improve future editions of the codes.

This guidance document, developed by the National Institute of Building Sciences and the New Buildings Institute, gives jurisdictions the means to help them achieve their energy performance goals for buildings. The document provides jurisdictions with the regulatory language to put an outcome-based compliance path into place.