Established in 1998, the Building Commissioning Association (BCxA) is an international not-for-profit trade association that serves as a source for unbiased information and advocacy for building commissioning. The BCxA is committed to developing and promoting building commissioning best practices and standards applicable to most, if not all, commercial, institutional, industrial, and mission critical buildings. The BCxA’s mission includes providing thought leadership, commissioning best practices, membership training opportunities, and advocacy for professional commissioning agents and firms.

Per the website (www.bcxa.org), BCxA is focused on being responsive to industry needs with an emphasis on providing educational resources. To bring that vision to life, efforts are made by the association to:

• Develop and advance technical resources for commissioning professionals.
• Form collaborative relationships with other organizations serving the built environment.
• Influence standards, policies, and codes that support high-performance buildings.
• Deliver an annual conference on building commissioning and innovations in the industry.
• Endorse certification programs that set the highest industry standards.

The BCxA has approximately 1,000 members. It is led by the international board of directors that establishes the overarching mission, goals, and objectives; manages committees and the annual commissioning conference; and liaisons with other related organizations, including ASHRAE and National Institute of Building Sciences (NIBS). The international board is supported by 10 regional BCxA chapters across the U.S. and Canada. Volunteers from these chapters serve on various committees, including Advocacy, Best Practices, Conference Planning, Marketing and Outreach, Membership Development, Professional Development, and Education and Training.

Perhaps the most valuable aspect to individual members is the BCxA “Knowledge Center,” which provides a broad range of information for membership use. This includes documents addressing commissioning process best practices for both new construction and existing building projects. It has commissioning tools that include over 50 document templates associated with the design phase, construction phase, and construction-related checklists. Topics cover all aspects of the commissioning process from developing an owner’s project requirements (OPR), a basis-of-design (BoD), writing detailed commissioning requests for qualifications (RFQs) and requests for proposals (RFPs), commissioning plans and specifications, documenting field observations and progress inspections, and sample test scripts and checklists. There are also templates for training plans and execution, systems manuals, and other commissioning-related deliverables.

The BCxA Building Commissioning Handbook explains the commissioning process for new construction commissioning (NCCx), existing building commissioning (EBCx), ongoing commissioning (OCx), and building enclosure commissioning (BECx). It describes methods and strategies for executing the commissioning process and is supported by an appendix with up-to-date templates, references, and additional resources. The third and latest edition was published in 2017.

Monthly webinars, called “Tech Talks,” are free to members. 2020 topics address life safety systems, commissioning team collaboration, testing heat exchangers, direct digital controls systems, and more. Additionally, members can post or view jop openings on the website and share links to non-BCxA industry resources.

BCxA University offers both online and in-person classes that can be taken individually but are also part of a full certification program. Completing all courses within a year allows students the opportunity to apply for certified commissioning professional (CCP) status. CCP certification is managed by the Building Commissioning Certification Board (BCCB). The BCCB is an ANSI-recognized certification board in accordance with ISO 17024. The BCCB also has certifications for entry-level commissioning providers called the Associate Commissioning Professional (ACP) and for commissioning firms called the Certified Commissioning Firm (CCF).

The BCxA offers four types of membership: associate, corporate, student, and nonprofit. Each level of membership includse full access to all of the BCxA tools, webinars, and publications.