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BRE launches their 2011 revision of the BREEAM scheme for Green Buildings

BRE (the UK's Building Research Establishment) has recently revamped and consolidated their standards for New Construction in the BREEAM 2011 Scheme (the Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method), which replaced the BREEAM 2008 systems effective July 1, 2011. BREEAM is one of the longest-standing environmental rating tools used for evaluating green buildings, having already certified more than 200,000 buildings since it was launched in 1990.

The goals of BREEAM are to mitigate the environmental lifecycle impacts of buildings, recognise buildings for achieving environmental improvements, provide a verifiable label for greener buildings, and stimulate the demand for sustainable buildings in the marketplace. But BREEAM has been in need of a revision to address some key drawbacks. The UK-GBC put forth several recommendations for key priorities in BREEAM 2011 update:

• Continue collaborating with other industry partners at home and abroad to ensure alignment with European standards.
• Ensure that the reporting of operational energy efficiency compared with design predictions is integral to achieving certification.
• Provide greater transparency on the Green Guide and share details behind the Environmental Profiles Methodology.
• Publish details of Innovation credits already submitted and allow Innovation credits to apply to all projects.

Were these recommendations addressed in this recent update? Here is a quick run through the stated benefits of this new scheme:

• A new, streamlined structure for training, licensing, registrations and certification.
• An opportunity to assess a wider range of ‘other building’ types, which means you are less likely to need to seek and pay for additional bespoke criteria. This includes hotels, leisure complexes, community buildings and other miscellaneous types.
• An updated Quality Assurance (QA) procedure which includes a greater emphasis on verifying evidence instead of validation statements. There will also be two types of auditing going forward: a full audit (required within 10 working days of report submission and covering 65pct of assessment issues) and a partial audit (QAs 10pct of the assessment issues).
• Increased discount for smaller companies and reduced fees for a combined ‘Commercial’ and 'Public Sector' licence.
• A new improved Green Book Live website which lists BREEAM certificated buildings.

In summary, while there are improvements, an early indication is that the priorities were not entirely addressed. As we start putting the new BREEAM into use we will identify more aspects of the new rating system, and when we do we will share them with you.