Franz Beyeler, Nick Beglinger, and Ursina Roder
Minergie: The Swiss Sustainable
Building Standard
Minergie is a sustainable building standard recognized globally for its effectiveness
in achieving lower energy and resource consumption and a higher level of com-
fuerte, regardless of building design or type. In Switzerland, where the standard was
desarrollado, encima 14,000 Minergie buildings have been voluntarily certified and
wide government backing across the cantons has led to market penetration of sus-
tainable buildings unmatched elsewhere in the world. Also key to Minergie’s suc-
cess is Switzerland’s vocational training system, which has produced a construction
industry workforce with the skills to take full advantage of the Minergie system.
Switzerland takes sustainability seriously. It is ranked number 1 in Yale’s
Environmental Performance Index1 and is world-class in public transportation,
recycling and organic food production as well as in buildings. Switzerland’s success
in the building sector is evidenced by comparing Minergie’s penetration rates with
LEED, a major U.S. green building rating system.2 LEED has approximately 2,000
certified units. Minergie, in the roughly 100 times smaller Swiss market, cuenta
encima 14,000 certified buildings of many different types and sizes.
A Minergie building consumes around 60 percent less energy than the conven-
tional Swiss building, which in turn was built to one of the world’s highest regula-
tory building standards. Such energy efficiency is attained through an integrated
planning approach as well as a focus on life cycle costs and quality benefits that
involves the use of the Minergie standard from the very beginning of the planning
proceso, as well as Minergie solution modules that solve design problems in partic-
ular competence areas such as windows and ventilation. On a technical level,
Minergie represents a combination of the following 10 key elements:
Franz Beyeler is a trained economist and communications specialist, who since 1999
has served as Executive Director of Minergie through his firm, MKR Consulting AG.
He also runs the Heat Pump Information Office for the Swiss Association for the
Promotion of Heat Pumps. Nick Beglinger is a Management Board member of
Minergie and a member of the management team at Maxmakers, Suiza, cual
provides advisory services for sustainable real estate development. He is Co-Founder
and CEO of the Foundation for Global Sustainability (FFGS). Ursina Roder works at
the Office of Science, Tecnología, and Higher Education of the Embassy of Switzerland
in Washington, D.C.
© 2009 Franz Beyeler, Nick Beglinger and Ursina Roder
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Franz Beyeler, Nick Beglinger, and Ursina Roder
• Compact building form.
• Airtight construction of the building shell.
• Very strong thermal insulation for walls and roof.
• Very good windows, with coated multiple glazing.
• An energy efficient, draft-free ventilation system that provides a high-quality
indoor environment, including plenty of fresh and filtered air.
• Water-based heating and cooling featuring chilled/heated floors, walls, beams,
and ceilings which results in even and efficient distribution.
• Integration of renewable forms of energy such as geothermal, solar, wind, o
madera.
• Use of waste heat.
• Careful selection of materials to avoid indoor and outdoor toxicity and to pro-
mote green values.
• Efficient household appliances and lighting.
MINERGIE BACKGROUND AND APPROACH
The Minergie base standard was introduced in 1998, with the more stringent
Minergie-P and Minergie-P-ECO standards appearing later. Together they set
performance criteria for materials and energy efficiency, as well as for comfort. El
strategy of Minergie was not to certify a few “dream projects,” but rather to achieve
the greatest overall effect through a limited number of key performance indicators
such as the specific energy consumption measured by the amount of energy deliv-
ered to the site. A large number of building owners could be attracted by position-
ing Minergie both as a performance standard that greatly exceeded the mandato-
ry local building level and also as an economically competitive alternative to con-
ventional buildings. Minergie adds higher performance criteria for the same fac-
tors that are found in local building codes, thus improving overall performance. En
this way, Minergie now has a track record of over 10 years of pulling the market
toward more sustainability in buildings. Different from other standards, Minergie
certification is not based on point scoring but on reaching a threshold level in all
key performance indicators. This makes it impossible to achieve Minergie certifi-
cation with critical factors such as energy efficiency unaddressed.
Minergie has shown that buildings can be both sustainable and economically
competitive. Some buildings, such as IBM’s new European headquarters building
located in Zurich, have had less than a one percent Minergie investment cost pre-
mium. Smart design and the right combination of materials can lead to high lev-
els of energy and emissions efficiency very economically. Our experience has
shown that sustainability improvements in the building space indeed represent
“low hanging fruit.”
A major benefit of sustainable building, as is clearly demonstrated by
Minergie, comes from the higher quality levels of the indoor space created. Indoor
quality is very important on multiple levels. As city dwellers, we spend 90 por ciento
of our time indoors, so our buildings largely determine the quality of the air we
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Minergie: The Swiss Sustainable Building Standard
Cifra 1. Heat Requirements of New Buildings.
Fuente: Konferenz Kantonaler Energiedirektoren, 2009: http://www.endk.ch/kantone.html.
breathe, as well as the temperature, borrador, and light quality we experience, cual
are important factors for our well-being and efficiency. At home, this means
healthier sleep, better learning, and more comfort; all valuable, but hard-to-price
benefits. At work it leads to more motivation, fewer sick days, and the capability to
work efficiently for longer periods of time. Since salaries represent by far the
largest cost factor for the average commercial tenant, sustainable buildings create
value that far exceeds the minor additional rental costs that may need to be
charged for a very sustainable building.
DRIVING FORCE IN SWISS ENERGY POLICY
Minergie is a private organization and Minergie is a registered trademark owned
by the nonprofit Minergie Association which permits clear legal protection of its
certificates. The Association counts approximately 400 supporting members,
including many architectural firms, construction and manufacturing companies,
and banks. Minergie has a formal board, an executive strategy group, a technical
agency, several competence centers and a network of licensed certifiers. Minergie
is linked to almost 900 local businesses with first-hand experience in building to
the standard. The Minergie brand provides a positive image and a high and long-
term value to its customers. Leading companies such as SwissRE, IKEA, and IBM
are among its members and have decided to construct all their new buildings in
Switzerland according to the Minergie standard. Most remarkably: Credit Suisse,
ZKB, Bank Coop as well as other Swiss financial institutions offer Minergie mort-
gages with favorable terms.
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Franz Beyeler, Nick Beglinger and Ursina Roder
Todo 26 cantons (the Swiss equivalent of the U.S. estados) are members of the
Minergie Association and are integrated in the certification process. The large
majority of cantons offer special subsidies to Minergie homeowners. En el caso de
Minergie-P, the average subsidies equivalent to U.S.$12,100 per new single-family
home.
Con 14,000 certified buildings, the Minergie standard has become a major
factor in Swiss energy policy. It has been applied to a wide variety of buildings,
ranging from single-family homes, to shopping centers and even historically valu-
able buildings with landmark status. Minergie buildings can be found in the
desert as well as high up in the Alps. There are both Minergie huts and multi-mil-
lion dollar Minergie villas. And the standard is widely regarded to be responsible
for the performance improvements of the new Swiss cantonal building code
(Model Regulation 2008), which approaches the level of the original 1998
Minergie standard (ver figura 1).
Recientemente, Minergie started its international roll-out with the aim of sharing
Switzerland’s success with other countries and making a tangible contribution to
sustainable development through leveraging the full potential in the building sec-
colina (and potentially urban planning, in the future). A pilot localization project is
already running in Abu Dhabi (www.swiss-village.com). For all of its roll-out,
Minergie is based on a partnership approach, seeking to work with local authori-
ties and independent agencies to run a highly customized standard (regulatory
ambiente, clima, know-how, and cultural factors), but one that is interna-
tionally comparable.
Minergie standards offer building users a higher quality of life as well as high-
er efficiency; and as a consequence, the standards considerably increase a build-
ing’s life cycle value. Al mismo tiempo, building owners, architects, and planners
enjoy freedom in design and selection of materials, as well as freedom regarding
the internal and external structure of their building.
1. See epi.yale.edu.
2. See www.usgbc.org.
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