GRESB Building Certification Evaluation

GRESB’s Building Certification Evaluation Criteria provide an industry-accepted, globally applicable framework to evaluate the quality of building certifications. The criteria, published in December 2024, were developed through industry engagement to reflect current investor expectations for building certifications. Further background is available at the bottom of this page.

The criteria cover high-level brand (governance, process, transparency) and more detailed scheme-level (scope and stringency) requirements. Certification bodies are required to demonstrate alignment with the criteria for a certification scheme to be recognized in future versions of the GRESB Real Estate Standard.

The updated criteria (December 2024) replace the historic minimum criteria, which were retired in June 2025.

GRESB has launched its evaluation process in June 2025. The evaluation is a two-stage process, with the brand-level review currently available to certification bodies. Once completed successfully, a certification body can proceed to the scheme-level review.

Certification bodies are required to submit short statements and provide supporting evidence in response to the updated criteria. GRESB will review the information submitted to determine an evaluation outcome. An offline version of the survey is available in PDF here to help certification bodies prepare their submission.

Submissions will only be accepted from certification bodies—the entity responsible for overseeing and administering various certification schemes—given that the nature of information required relates to internal policies and practices.

Further detailed instructions and the full survey are available here:

A running tracker with the status of certification brands being reviewed against the updated criteria will become available on this webpage from July 2025.  

GRESB’s recognized list of building certification schemes is key to guiding real estate strategies globally, and updates to this list are likely to have significant impacts. GRESB is aware of the industry’s reliance on this list and is fully committed to ensuring a smooth transition to the implementation of an updated list of recognized schemes.

• The current list of recognized certification schemes (found in Appendix 7 of the 2025 GRESB Reference Guide) will continue to be valid for the 2025 and 2026 GRESB Real Estate Standards.
  • This list of recognized schemes is effectively frozen and no further changes are anticipated.   
• All certification schemes are required to demonstrate alignment with the updated criteria by December 2026 to be recognized in the 2027 GRESB Real Estate Standard onwards.
  • Please note, this implementation timeline is subject to the response rate received from certification bodies and outcomes from the evaluation process across 2025 and 2026. GRESB will provide a formal industry update on the status of the evaluation process in Q4 2025.  

The evaluation process using the revised criteria will take place across 2025-26 with implementation planned in the GRESB Standard from 2027 (subject to response rate and outcomes of the evaluation process).

Please check this page for ongoing updates on GRESB’s building certification evaluation process. For any questions, comments, or feedback, please email [email protected].  

• March 2024: GRESB announces public consultation on building certifications – see news article.
• April to June 2024: Public consultation held to gather industry views and feedback on draft revised criteria (responses received from over 100 organizations), which was used to updated and refine the criteria.
• December 2024: GRESB announces revised criteria for building certification schemes – see news article.
• June 2025: GRESB launches evaluation process with brand-level survey for certification bodies to respond to.