HADES, (Design Aid Tool for Sustainable Building), a new tool developed by GBCe to help designers in the creative process, quantifying the environmental improvements that can be applied while conceiving the building.

In order to design a sustainable building it is important to outline the intentions and goals from the initial stages of the process.

HADES is a tool created to help in this decision-making phase. It is based on the VERDE evaluation method and environmental certification.

In developing HADES, GBCe aims to achieve the following:

- Keep a record of sustainability measures that must be applied during the first stages of building design

- Portray existing available technology and its cost

- Describe improvements attained by applying  each of the measures that suit the project

- Assess the design of the building in relation to the impact it generates in its surroundings, coherently with the evaluation process that VERDE follows, once all the suitable measures have been applied.

HADES mixes two types of information in one single tool: those incorporated in the project and the impacts they generate. This solves two important concerns:

· To guide developers, designers and builders in creating high environmental performance buildings

· Allowing the project to be evaluated in the most unbiased way

HADES is a tool based on the environmental evaluation and certification process VERDE. It has been planned and created in cooperation with the General Secretariat for Housing and Urban Works, of the Ministry of Public Works.