New laws demand a plan B
In Germany, there are two major organisations overseeing building sustainability; one is more focused on private building projects and the other on public ones. With both organisations, you have to meet several different kinds of criteria for sustainability to receive a gold or platinum certificate. Timber is great in this respect as its CO2 footprint is actually negative, because timber traps carbon. If the Reichstag would have been constructed today out of wood, it would have easily received the Golden Certificate for public buildings.