The Role of Standards in a Performance-Based Building Regulatory System

Published

September 16, 2004

Author(s)

Richard W. Bukowski

Abstract

Building regulatory systems consist of regulations adopted into law through whatever legislative or administrative procedures are appropriate to the legal system in place, supported by standards that provide the detail on what is considered necessary or sufficient to be considered in compliance. Regulations embody the public expectations for how buildings and facilities are expected to perform and as such represent public policy. Regulators, who develop and enforce regulations, are empowered to act in the public interest to set this policy and are ultimately responsible to the public in this regard.Standards can provide details of methods and evaluation criteria too complex to include within the regulations themselves. Standards, as more technical documents, rely on significant input from technical experts and often are developed by private groups who may have financial interests in the items covered. Standards employed in regulatory contexts should be developed in a fair and open manner and many countries have mechanisms in place to ensure that standards do not restrain trade or limit competition. In recent years the importance of harmonized standards is recognized in the context of facilitating international trade.This paper is one of a series of discussion papers developed by the Interjurisdictional Regulatory Collaboration Committee (IRCC) and the International Council for Building Research and Innovation (CIB) Task Group TG37, Performance Based Building Regulatory Systems intended to address evolving issues related to building regulatory reform. The IRCC members are the chief building regulatory officials or drafters of a number of countries that are developing or have implemented, performance-based building regulations. IRCC activities involve the sharing of common experiences and developing issues involving public policy and regulatory framework and infrastructure. With a somewhat broader membership, CIB TG37 works closely with the IRCC on related technical issues. A set of papers was presented at the CIB World Building Congress 2001 in Wellington, New Zealand and these topics are developed further in a set of papers (including this one) presented at the 4th International Conference on Performance-Based Codes and Fire Safety Design Methods, Melbourne, Australia, 2002.

Citation

International Conference on Performance-Based Codes and Fire Safety Design Methods

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

building codes, due dilligence, fire codes, international trade, performance standards

Citation

Bukowski, R. (2004), The Role of Standards in a Performance-Based Building Regulatory System, International Conference on Performance-Based Codes and Fire Safety Design Methods, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=861116 (Accessed May 4, 2024)