A decade after the National Institute of Building Sciences established the High Performance Building Council (HPBC), the Institute’s Board of Directors has voted to successfully sunset the program.

The Institute founded the HPBC in 2007 in response to a request from the U.S. Secretary of Energy to assess the existing voluntary standards and rating systems that defined high-performance buildings at the time. Using the integrated approach of the WBDG Whole Building Design Guide®, which describes high-performance buildings in terms of eight attributes (cost-effectiveness, safety and security, sustainability, accessibility, functionality, productivity, historic preservation and aesthetics), the Council conducted industry-wide research and analysis. The HPBC delivered the resulting report, Assessment to the U.S. Congress and the U.S. Department of Energy on High Performance Buildings, to the Department of Energy (DOE) in 2008.