Governance units as interstitial organizations: the role of governance organizations in the development and establishment of Building Environmental Assessment Methods (BEAM)

Abstract

Green Building has been touted as the future of building construction. However, its emergence, due to the fluidity of the green building concept, is sometimes fraught with power struggles in the debate over which standards and practices to be adopted. With the emergence of Building Environmental Assessment Methods, much hope has been put on their associated third-party certification organizations to help forge a common ground for green building. These organizations are boundary spanning, traversing multiple professional jurisdictions, organizational fields, and involving various state and non-state actors. Despite wielding much influence in the development, establishment and promotion of BEAMs, the authority, and legitimacy of governance organizations are being questioned as to whose interest they serve, and whether they promote realistic green building practices. We argue that while the success of these governance organizations will be their ability to act as neutral ‘brokers” of green building practices, they may end up capitulating the interest of powerful actors. Drawing on the theory fields proposed by Fligstein and McAdam (2012) and the concept of interstitial emergence, we explore the role of governance organizations for BEAMS in the building industry. The case is made that there is a need to examine the activities of governance organizations in the development of BEAMs, and why conceptualizing them as interstitial/boundary-spanning organizations could offer new insights and research directions in the burgeoning researching on BEAMs.