The updated BREEAM UK
New Construction scheme goes live this week, following BREEAM’s most
comprehensive industry consultation to date.
The revision of the
world leading sustainability assessment method for real estate addresses key
industry challenges around the performance gap as well as lifecycle assessment,
offering benefits for developers, investors and users. It also adopts fresh approaches
to sustainable travel and ecology to reflect evolving best practice.
BRE worked with
industry to align the updated scheme to today’s sustainable development
priorities.
The learning from that collaboration has driven a string of
improvements, the most important being:
- Performance gap:
The energy category now addresses one of the industry’s most pressing
concerns, through potential action at design and occupation phases. It
rewards detailed energy modelling in design, and allows for this to be
reviewed as part of its new post-occupancy stage. This enables modelled
and actual building performance to be compared easily.
- Lifecycle
assessment: The materials category now encourages whole building lifecycle
assessment, in a move designed to help increase industry understanding and
inform decision-making based on true impact of materials specified
- Ecology: New
criteria for this category promote the integration of holistic, best
practice ecology approaches across the lifecycle of the building. These
criteria are based on BREEAM’s Strategic Ecology Framework, a pioneering
methodology linking ecology with all aspects of development.
- Travel: The
transport criteria have been restructured to focus on rewarding positive
action, rather than proximity to existing services.
Industry
has recognised the potential benefits of the improvements. Jane Wakiwaka,
Sustainability Manager for The Crown Estate, says “BREEAM schemes provide our
developments with a measurable and comparable benchmark against which to assess
and improve environmental performance.
"We
support the launch of the 2018 New Construction scheme as a means of driving
the industry forward, as well as challenging design and construction teams to
improve and innovate in the performance of the built environment.”
Alexandra
Vella, Principal Engineer at Hoare Lea, says “BREEAM UK New Construction 2018
has adapted its method in the way energy use is predicted and the associated
rewards gained. Verifying actual energy usage and using these figures when
designing will better equip designers to accurately predict building needs and
avoid oversizing services. Realistic records of energy use and carbon emissions
could then be used to update guidelines in this area.”
The
arrival of BREEAM UK New Construction marks the latest stage in the continuing
development of the sustainability assessment method, which is now applied in 77
countries and has more than 2.2 million buildings registered under its schemes.
