The UKGBC is launching plans for a Code for Sustainable Buildings to “address the confusion arising from the myriad of different green building standards.” Although they’ve used the name, this isn’t the same Code for Sustainable Buildings that we were promised a few years back and that was eventually pared down into the Code for Sustainable Homes. This is an “open-source” UKGBC-managed standard which could then be used in other standards.
Reading between the lines, the UKGBC have just pre-empted a situation in which BREEAM is adopted wholesale as the basis of a future Code for non-residential buildings (a situation like we saw with EcoHomes and the CfSH). It looks to me like they’re looking to usurp BRE’s place as guardian’s of the public interest when it comes to building performance and I suspect the use of the words “open-source” is a stinging reference to BRE’s increasingly mercenary approach. So take that BRE – you’ve just been King-slapped.
Or am I just looking for drama on an otherwise dull Tuesday?
carbon limited 
I am as full of anti-BRE rhetoric as the next , well- anybody, really! But the UKGBC! No thanks, I’d rather the BRE any day. GBC is a trade body, like NHBC and works for its members interests. I predict a proposed lowering of standards in this Code. I was at the FMB conference last week, which was very good. I took copious notes for a change, but the GBC talk inspired only one word to be put on my paper: ‘Insipid’. I just dont like ’em!
Jason, fancy doing a guest post to report on your FMB conference reaction?