The Green Building Council Institute (GBCI) recently announced its adoption of a new building standard — the RELi standard — for resilience, in an effort to promote buildings that offer greater adaptability and resilience to weather and natural disasters. The new standard will complement LEED’s Resilient Design pilot credits, which ensure that building designers consider a building’s vulnerabilities and address the largest risks in the design and functionality of the building.

“The increasing frequency of dramatic events has brought an even greater urgency to create buildings and communities that are better adapted to a changing climate and better able to bounce back from disturbances and interruptions,” Mahesh Ramanujam, president and CEO of the U.S. Green Building Council and the GBCI, in a press release.

RELi is a point-based system in which buildings gain recognition and certification in the following key areas, in addition to others:

• Hazard preparedness
• Disaster recovery
• Crisis communications
• Resilient food production
• Health promotion
• Energy efficiency
• Water-use reduction

Now that the new standard has been adopted, a steering committee is being formed to incorporate resilience considerations into the design, construction and operation of buildings. The goal is to build more resilient communities and infrastructure worldwide, as well as to improve people’s lives and well-being.

The goal is to scale RELi so that it becomes a national and international rating system, which will be managed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) and the GBCI.