Organizational Analysis of Sustainable Building Certifications in Mexico City

Abstract

In 2008, the Sustainable Building Certificate Program was implemented in order to identify and to foster sustainable buildings. The aim of the work is to analyze, since an organizational perspective, the contribution of the users’ “day a day” actions to archive sustainability. The principal variable is the building property actions to obtain the certification and the criteria defined at the Certification Program. The central significance of this work is to define how important is the implementation of strategies to introduce sustainable patterns to the building users in contrast with the facility features. The most interesting finding shows that certification design and punctuation assignation to each criteria influence in sustainable actions. The incorporation of technology devices primes over the sustainable actions by the users of the buildings. This condition represents a practical implication because the sustainable actions pattern presents a challenge to the sustainable vision. People do not assume the sustainability as a change in human actions, but a technological question. So, the central value of this research is to demonstrate the very low importance in the Mexico City certification program and stakeholders in sustainable user’s patterns. The principal limitation the research is many sustainable buildings, certificated by international programs were not includes. This consideration implies future studies, to identify a general tendency of sustainable actions related with the users’ activity.