Serf (Society Of Environmentally Responsible Facilities)

Society of Environmentally Responsible Facilities (SERF) makes green building certification more streamlined, affordable and accessible to owners, managers and developers. SERF leverages its certification program to advance the concept of Practical Environmental Stewardship™. SERF uses a proprietary rating system with 22 separate areas pertaining to sustainability for Office, Multi-Family Residential, Retail, Manufacturing & Distribution, Hospital and Institutional Facilities. Upon self-completion of this scoring system and notarized verification by a licensed architect or engineer (other than the facility’s architect or engineer of record), the facility becomes eligible for SERF certification SERF follows a prescriptive process of certification. The benchmarks of sustainability used in the process are third party standards such as ASHRAE, ANSI, BIFMA, USDA etc., instead of requiring reduction from a baseline consumption or composition. SERF also uses a dynamic scoring system as an alternative to a static scoring system. This scoring system is percentage based, which the denominator of the score may be adjusted to eliminate those credits which are impractical or cost prohibitive to implement especially in the case of existing facilities. Both of the above methodologies ensure fair requirements for both new and existing facilities, further enhancing SERF’s goal of making green building certifications flexible and responsive