Ateque, French working group on assessment of building environmental quality.

ATEOUE is a French working group created in June 1993 by the Ministry of Housing in order to harmonise and to facilitate the develop merit of tools concerning the improvement of building environmental quality (assessment methods, books of specifications, recommendations, etc. ... ). The methodological aspects play an important role in ATEQUE. ATEOUE is composed of the authorities concerned, and of 26 members representing all the categories of building professional actors (researchers, manufacturers, owners, designers, builders, consultants, service providers).

ATEQUE is divided up into several working groups :

• WG1 has worked on the identification of actors concerned by building environmental quality, of types of impact and of assessment criteria.
• WG2 has dealt with the inventory of functional, structural and time-based typologies. It has identified the descriptive building languages in functional and structural terms, which may be used for the assessment of the building environmental quality, and the different phases of the life cycle of buildings.
• WG3 has worked on the building actors' sensitivity and awareness of the environment.
• WG4 has started to analyse the specific quality of the newly developed tools, and to undertake the comparative assessment of these tools by means of case studies.
• WG5 concerns the structuring and improvement of methods, by the definition of reference buildings and reference occupancy scenarios, and by the structuring of data in order to feed the tools under development.
• WG6 concerns the role of construction products in the environmental quality of buildings.
• WG7 focuses on the improvement of existing buildings' environmental quality.

This paper presents ATEQUE, the main issues that are considered of most importance in France, linked to the environmental quality of buildings, the main results of the different sub-groups, and the prospects.