Rating Systems and CASSBs Tools

I attended WFES (World Future Energy Summit) at Abu Dhabi,January this year.Apart from so many things to blog about including shaking hands with Vinod Khosla ,one interesting seminar/lecture was on rating systems for green buildings.CASSBs stands for comprehensive assessment system for sustainable buildings ,yet another abbreviation to keep up with in your green closet.Nevertheless,this was quite apt for a place like Abu Dhabi which is caught in the middle of Green Building Commercial War.Most of the managers and beaurocrats in GCC countries come from UK and so there was little doubt that BREEAM will take over LEED or GBTool.While BREEAM was founded before USGBC's LEED and infact most of the LEED is based on BREEAM,however USGBC was commercial quite successful.But the rating system is so complex that there are less tan 2000 buildings with LEED rating.Another aspect with respect to GCC countries is context mainly materials and climate which are completely different from North America or UK for instance.Therefore Abu Dhabi has come up with its own rating system called Estidama pearl rating system.Now this is exactly the kind of scenario before a global rating system is adopted.There is a great chance,opportunity to call in for a global rating system adapting according to local context.In fact I was wondering that a software addressing all these issues can be incorporated within the BIM models,adding another dimension to the BIM blog we have over here.We already have Bentley's BIM for green building under development and Autodesk Ecotect etc.But the rating system surpasses architecture and to develop such software a great deal of MEP knowledge is also required.Revit MEP is used to target LEED ratings,but again this is completely a new field and it is yet to be seen how effective and quick these tools are.