DGNB certification: sustainability put on scale
How a building's overall sustainability is assessed
Where BR18's climate requirements and LCA requirements set a statutory floor for new construction's climate footprint, DGNB is a voluntary certification that building owners can choose if they want to document a building's sustainability from a broader and more ambitious perspective.
§What does DGNB stand for?
DGNB stands for Deutsche Gesellschaft für Nachhaltiges Bauen — the German company that originally developed the system. In Denmark the Danish version is administered by the Council for Sustainable Construction which adapts the criteria to Danish conditions standards and legislation.
§A holistic system
What distinguishes DGNB from pure climate calculations is that the system assesses a building from a holistic sustainability perspective: environment economy and social factors are weighted side by side throughout the building's lifecycle. A building is thus not only judged on its CO2 footprint but also on among other things indoor climate operations material choices and the building's long-term value.
- 01Environment: materials, energy consumption and carbon footprint
- 02Economy: lifetime costs and the building's long-term value
- 03Social conditions: indoor climate, daylight, noise and user wellbeing
- 04Technical quality and process: how the project was planned and carried out
§Three levels: silver gold and platinum
A project can achieve DGNB certification at the levels silver gold or platinum depending on the total score in the assessment. The ambition level is typically chosen early in the project based on budget function and the client's strategy because the higher level requires more documentation and often more expensive solutions along the way.
§Why do clients choose DGNB?
DGNB is often used in Denmark because the system is adapted to European conditions provides flexibility in how individual criteria are met and serves as a common language between building owner consultants and contractors about what sustainability concretely means in a project. For tenants investors and authorities the certification is also an easily understood proof that sustainability has been documented by an independent party — not just a claim.
§What does it mean at the construction site?
On a DGNB project, documentation requirements typically become noticeable in everyday life: materials must be documented with EPDs, waste management and noise levels must be recorded, and deviations from the plan must be justified. For craftspeople, this means that care with documentation — not just the work itself — becomes part of the task because the certification depends on whether what is promised on paper can also be proven in practice.
§Certification is not just for new construction
Although DGNB is most often associated with new buildings there are also ratings aimed at existing buildings and at the operation of a building over time. It means that sustainability work does not stop when construction is completed — maintenance energy consumption in operation and ongoing documentation can continue to influence how a building is rated throughout its lifetime not just at the time of completion.
§The difference between legal requirements and voluntary certification
It is worth keeping DGNB and the statutory climate requirements in BR18 separate in your mind. BR18's limit values are a floor that all new construction must comply with in order to get a building permit at all. DGNB, on the other hand, is a voluntary, more ambitious standard that a project owner can choose to have their project assessed by, if they want to document a broader and more thorough sustainability effort than the law's minimum. Many DGNB-certified projects therefore comply with BR18's requirements with a good margin, because the certification's criteria already lie above the law's floor level.
- 01BR18's climate requirements: statutory baseline that applies to all new construction
- 02DGNB: voluntary certification that assesses more broadly than climate alone
- 03A DGNB project typically needs to document more than the law requires.
- 04The two rule sets complement each other rather than replace each other