The DSBE is structured to support a step by step change in practice by the professions or organsiations, or both, engaged in creating, constructing and developing, enhancing, maintaining, manufacturing, planning, refurbishing or retrofitting, surveying and testing the built environment; with a focus on sustainability for current and future generations. Sustainability in the context of the DSBE covers aspects related to community, or economic, or environmental, or social, or all four.
The DSBE enables a broad range of professional disciplines to engage in masterminding a change in practice, leading to an enhanced sustainable built environment; focused on buildings, the landscape in which buildings are situated, or components within buildings or the landscape, or indeed people that use the built environment and their health, safety and wellbeing.
The focus for a change in practice or organisational change, or both is flexible and broadly covers one of three types, to include: proposing, implementing, and evaluating change within the professional context; evaluating change that is already happening within the professional context; or gaining a better understanding of the professional context to propose change.
For the Built Environment to be sustainable it must be resilient in order to cope with changing needs, climates, policies, resources and users. Indeed, to enable a sustainable future for people at the building scale through to the neighborhood and urban scale - building design, construction, and their systems must be adaptable and resilient against man-made and natural disasters and environmental change. Furthermore, resource use and management should aim to recycle and reuse. This ethos is applied to many different types of facilities: housing, schools, hospitals, offices, resources.