The Haute Qualité Environnementale or HQE (High Quality Environmental standard) is a standard for green building in France, based on the principles of sustainable development first set out at the 1992 Earth Summit. The standard is controlled by the Paris based Association pour la Haute Qualité Environnementale (ASSOHQE).
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The standard specifies criteria for the following:[1]
Managing the impacts on the outdoor environment
Creating a pleasant indoor environment
On June 16, 2009, it was announced that the CSTB (Centre Scientifique et Technique du Batiment) and its subsidiary CertiVéA had signed a Memorandum of Understanding to work together with the Global arm of the United Kingdom's Building Research Establishment (BRE) to develop a pan-European building environmental assessment method. The BRE developed and market (BREEAM (the BRE Environmental Assessment Method), which has similarities to the French HQE. Unfortunately, BREEAM and HQE are still disseminating around the world under their own brandmarks, thus letting little doubt that no emergence of any pan-European method will ever appear in the near future, at least stemming from those two ones.[2]