Elemental

As reported by Building4Change:

A new ISO standard aims to bridge the gap between regional and national environmental assessment methods by providing a common framework for them to be carried out.

ISO 21931-1:2010 highlights the key issues to be assessed at every stage of a construction project, from design through to operation and refurbishment or deconstruction. Each of these stages impact on a building’s environmental performance throughout its lifetime and assessment methods are integral in determining its overall sustainability.

There is a clear requirement in the construction sector for such assessments to not only be accurate but consistent. An internationally agreed framework will help ensure that buildings are constructed as sustainably as possible whilst enabling projects to be benchmarked and progress monitored.

I’ve read it, so you don’t have to. It’s only 38 pages long though, and most of those are taken up by definitions, so perhaps I’m not as civic minded as first appears.

I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to reproduce without infringing copyright law (10% rings a bell? can anyone clarify?), so I’ve kept the clippings to a minimum.

The ability to measure and understand the environmental performance of buildings is essential for communicating their potential environmental impacts and their influence on sustainable development.

However:

This part of ISO 21931 does not set benchmarks or levels of performance relative to environmental impacts and aspects.

The document is more of an umbrella (for Europe) which will provide common language to enable standards (such as BREEAM, HQE and DGNB) to be relatable to each other.

We’ve long debated if we’ll end up with one environmental standard to rule them all, or continue to have local, national schemes relevant to location. Sustainability tends to be context specific, so having localised standards makes sense (and the path BREEAM is following), and this framework ought to make things easier. Indeed this is picked up in section 4.3:

The environmental performance of a building is influenced by the characteristics of the climatic, social, economic and cultural context of the nation, region and site in which the building is located.

Subject to the aims and objectives of the assessment, the environmental performance of a building shall be expressed by absolute values. In addition, relative values may be used alongside the absolute values. Relative values refer to given contexts and should reflect regionally relevant benchmarks, as appropriate

This document is not specifically calling for data measurement to be exactly replicated across different schemes – there are moves afoot to define common carbon metrics which will make this much easier, but that is not the purpose of this document.

Lifecycle impacts are explicitly encouraged:

All life-cycle stages shall be considered in the assessment. When some stages are not considered or are excluded from the assessment, the reasons for such omission or exclusion shall be clearly explained in the methodology documentation. The assessment report shall state which life-cycle stages are included and which life-cycle stages are excluded.

Interestingly, in the list of impacts to be considered by an assessment method, notable by their absence are physical location and context of the building, and transport. This does not sit comfortably with me – I have never quite forgiven CSH for removing the transport credits from EcoHomes. I suspect given this guidance document, the same may happen in BREEAM.

The document, if anything, enables any European country to come up with their own assessment method. There is nothing in there which negates the use of either BREEAM nor LEED (although lifecycle calculations may need to be tightened up somewhat). In fact, both schemes as they currently stand cover more ground than that which this document calls for.

Do you need to read this document? Probably not. It gives a good broad overview of the benefits of environmental assessments, so might be useful for that.

And now you don’t need to read it. Aren’t I good to you all?

admin Book Review BREEAM, Europe, LEED, standardisation

The eagle eyed amongst you may have spotted a new page on the blog - global building accreditation schemes. It is very much a work in progress and I’ve missed any obvious schemes, please let me know.

As new announcements are made, I add them into the google spreadsheet which sits behind the page. For example, yesterday I added Italy LEED to the list – this is the first European country to commit to LEED – BREEAM up until now had penetrated the market to a much greater extent. The news is different elsewhere in the world – LEED dominates in most other regions.

Many articles debate which scheme will ‘win’ the battle. For my money, it’s too early to call, both systems have different business models which may suit different local conditions and economic realities. Sustainability, in my opinion, is context specific and subjective. This is another problem with simplifying into codes.
Humans by our very nature like to simplify things and make things easier for our brains – we use heuristics (to reduce the effort on our brain). LEED and BREEAM are no more than useful shorthand for today’s most widely accepted definitions of what a sustainable building looks like.

In the future voluntary green accreditation schemes may be overtaken by local building codes (Building Regs in the UK). There is a great little paper from USGBC here (pdf, 8 pgs) which outlines the history of building codes:

The idea of a building code is more than 3,000 years old. Even the earliest civilizations recognized that predictable and consistent minimum standards had to apply to construction materials and practice in order to provide practical and adequate protection of human life, safety and the welfare of the community at large. The Code of Hammurabi, named for the founder of the Babylonian Empire, outlined the responsibilities of builders for the safe construction of buildings and laid out harsh punishment for those who failed to comply.
Around 64 A.D. the purview of the codes was widened to include for the first time, fire safety. Though the wealthy Roman Empire kept close rein on its public buildings, it was the burning of Rome—largely due to poorly made, flammable and otherwise unprotected buildings—that gave the impetus for a new generation of safer buildings and neighborhoods in Nero’s subsequent master plan.
But as with much of the rest of the body of ancient knowledge, these Roman codes did not survive the Dark Ages. It took the great fire of London in 1666 to give rise to another early set of fire safety regulations. This same harsh reality was subsequently faced in cities across the globe: fire in cities and in buildings is a threat to human life and public safety, thus public officials around the world were faced with the clear and present obligation to safeguard against its devastating effects.

Worth reading the whole paper – in my opinion there will always be a space for a voluntary scheme which rewards those who do more than the statutory minimum. Whether this remains LEED or indeed BREEAM is a moot point to me. What I am in favour of is both systems keeping ahead of the curve (again, in my opinion, this is where Code for Sustainable Homes has in effect fallen down). USGBC seem to concur:

For the large number of jurisdictions embarking on sustainability planning, and also for those who are well on their way, a green building code and an above-code green building rating system provide the best-case scenario of push-and-pull market-driving tools. Without stronger, more comprehensive codes, the majority of buildings may remain untouched by the positive benefits that building green provides. But without above-code rating systems, these codes may be seen as the best we can possibly do, rather than the most we can reasonably expect. Any jurisdiction engaged in sustainability planning should be considering the universe of available green building policy options, and pressing hard to further the policy innovations that have become a hallmark of the green building movement.

Do you agree?

admin Accreditation Accreditation, BREEAM, global, LEED

These are my links for April 24th through April 30th:

• Comparing Estidama’s Pearls Rating System to LEED and BREEAM | Carboun: Advocating Sustainability in the Middle East – Excellent write-up on Estidama. I'm drawn to the process and 'philosophical' differences: "The first striking difference between The Pearls Rating System on the one hand, and LEED and BREEAM on the other, is that unlike its predecessors systems, the Pearls Rating System is not a standalone document, but part of the Pearls Design System, which includes a complementary design Guide and supplementary Application Guides for public works, parks and infrastructure."
• French Building Sector should speed up process of BREEAM-HQE alignment « Sustainable Innovation – Interesting article on the delay of alignment of HQE and BREEAM in France. Some interesting points about the spread of BREEAM across Europe including a map showing which countries are taking it up.
• Green Guide for Historic Buildings published – "A comprehensive new guide for anyone wanting to improve the environmental performance of historic and listed buildings has been published today by The Prince's Regeneration Trust, the heritage regeneration charity of HRH The Prince of Wales. The Green Guide for Historic Buildings provides practical step-by-step advice on improving the environmental sustainability of historic and listed buildings. The guide gives expert opinion on sympathetic adaptations and, crucially, how effective they are likely to be in saving money and reducing carbon emissions."
• Real Life LEED: A Night at the Proximity – My Stay at the First LEED Platinum Hotel – Wow!: "While the design and construction practices leading to their LEED Platinum certification were no doubt substantial, what really impressed me about this hotel is its managements' commitment to sustainable operations. Not only do they track the energy use of the facility, they have built a running model that figures in hotel occupancy and uses an on-site weather center to calibrate the performance under ever changing conditions! Having had a few years to learn how the building really works, they've even gotten to the point where they provide rooms for guests based on energy performance… They don't place people in the south-facing rooms until the hotel is filling to capacity so they can close the blinds and reduce the solar heat gain to the maximum extent possible. You don't get to that point by just letting the design and construction team do their thing and simply moving in."
• What is the Commercial EPC Conventions Group? | National Energy Services – "The path to complete (or even partial) consistency is not an easy one, and is borne out by the fact that an output has yet to be delivered, but Issue 1 of the conventions is a fairly weighty set and should prove worth the wait. Even the seemingly easy conventions can turn out to be difficult when you have 6 keen accreditation schemes sitting around a table, and in some cases an almost complete lack of guidance or even intent from guiding organisations (naming no names!) will severely hamper progress being made. Several key fundamental issues, such as the details of what is a party wall and what is a low energy building, remain unresolved. We’re working hard with everyone else to sort out aspects such as these as soon as possible."
• breeam – Really cute video for BREEAM-ES (Spanish BREEAM). Complete fluff but cute.
• Roger K. Lewis – Smart growth incorporates lessons from planning mistakes – Good short primer on smart growth in US suburbia.
• 10 ways that SAP 2009 will impact you | National Energy Services – Whilst we wait for Part L AD's to come out, a useful guide to changes to SAP2009 from NHER: "There are essentially two types of change within SAP 2009. Firstly, those that aim to improve the accuracy of the SAP methodology. Secondly, changes to make SAP more flexible, enabling a variety of new and existing technologies to be combined within a given dwelling. The overall effect will be an increase in the predicted energy consumption of dwellings for heating, partly offset by a drop in hot water consumption."
• Renewable Energy Body Bats Away “Peak Wood” Claims | Wood Fuel Magazine – “‘Peak wood’ a misleading term, as in contrast to fossil fuels, the resource of woodfuel is fundamentally renewable as opposed to finite. Price escalation as a direct result of reserve depletion – as seen in recent years from geological constraints on oil supply – is therefore not possible. Wood is a soft commodity, where prices should trend downwards as efficiencies in supply develop."

admin News biomass, BREEAM, BREEAM-ES, building, EPC, estidama, HQE, LEED, Management, SAP2009, smart_growth

For those who missed the BREEAM awards at Ecobuild last week, I was chuffed to find out that one of the first projects I worked at when I arrived at Inbuilt had won the Prisons category for the BREEAM awards 2010.

The project was a massive learning curve for both myself (having never worked on a prison before) and the construction manager (who had not done BREEAM before – although the contractor overall was well versed with sustainability). It was a great project to work on and fostered some excellent relationships.

If you’d like to read the case study the pdf is downloadable here. Littlehey was assessed under BREEAM for Prisons 2006, and achieved an Excellent rating of 76.23%. Our initial target had been Very Good, but we achieved the excellent with no cost to the client, and only a small uplift to the contractor.

The Inbuilt case study is available here and this is what the construction manager said about the experience:

“Dealing with Inbuilt and their specialist team has been a delight; they would review and recommend design changes and constantly reappraise the facts they were presented with until we were able to raise the challenging MoJ expectation of BREEAM ‘Very Good’ to ‘Excellent’.”
Malcolm Mitton,
Construction Manager, Wates Construction Ltd

There is a lot more to a successful BREEAM assessment than ticking boxes, and sometimes all that blood, sweat and tears get the recognition it deserves! Although it was my name on the certificate, massive thanks to my dedicated colleague T, without whose terrier-like ability to chase down evidence, we would not have succeeded.

admin News BREEAM

I’m almost finished writing my final installment on BREEAM vs LEED, but I’ve run out of time to publish it this week.  In the meantime, you may be interested to know that CIBSE have a conference coming up on this very subject on 10th Feb 2010 in Balham. A snip at £225 for members.

Hear from Chris Twinn (Arup), Alfonso Ponce-Alvarez, (Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment), Ivan Rodriguez (URS Corp), Esfandiar Burman (ARCADIS), Sean Lockie (Faithful+Gould), Steven Brindle (Waterman Energy & Environment Design), Vincent Murray (IES) and Angus McIntosh (Kings Sturge).

BREEAM and LEED are the two most widely recognised environmental assessment methodologies used in the construction industry today.   Whilst the thrust of the two are similar – i.e. conserving energy and reducing carbon emissions, generally it is not straightforward to compare the two. What might be applicable in one assessment method might not be relevant in another.

How can a project team determine under which methodology their project can achieve the best rating? This conference aims to give you the necessary background and help you make an informed decision about your project.

admin Accreditation, Events Add new tag, BREEAM, LEED

This follow up post is for those who are familiar with BREEAM and have some knowledge of the credit numberings and weightings for both schemes. If you need to refer to the manuals the BREEAM manual can be found here and the LEED manual can be found here.

If you are just looking for an overview, try the first post in this series here.

I start with a brief overview of LEED 2009 scoring and prerequisites.

Then I look at the main differences and significant similarities in LEED 2009 from BREEAM 2008.

I finish with the weightings which are now within LEED – a significant change between v2 and 2009 which brings it much more in line with BREEAM.

LEED 2009

LEED 2009 replaced LEED 2.0 from 27 April 2009. All discussion which follows refers to LEED-NC (new construction). There are small differences for the other schemes.

Unlike BREEAM, LEED is a points rather than percentage system. There are 100 base points, 6 possible Innovation in Design and 4 Regional Priority points.

Prerequisites

LEED introduced prerequisites before BREEAM’s mandatory credits. Prerequisites are mandatory for all ratings.

Sustainable Sites

• SSP1 – Construction Activity Pollution Prevention

Water Efficiency

• WE1 – Water Use Reduction

Energy and Atmosphere

• EAP1 – Fundamental Commissioning of Building Energy Systems
• EAP2 – Minimum Energy Performance
• EAP3 – Fundamental Refrigerant Management

Materials and Resources

• MRP1 – Storage and Collection of Recyclables

Indoor Environmental Quality

• EQP1 – Minimum Indoor Air Quality Performance
• EQP2 – Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) Control

Sustainable Sites

SS1 forbids development on farmland, wetlands and within 50 feet of a water body. BREEAM has no equivalent (but these may be covered elsewhere within UK legislation).

SS2 requires development density calculations which BREEAM does not. There are similarities in the types of services (bank, shops, post office, etc) which the development is rewarded for being near.

SS3 (brownfield development) is considerably easier to achieve than LE2 (contaminated land).

The transport credits in LEED are considerably less onerous than the BREEAM equivalents. For example, a 300,00ft² office building would require 95 cycle spaces under BREEAM, but only 36 under LEED. LEED rewards specific parking for LEV and FEV or for an LEV sharing scheme. There is no current equivalent under BREEAM, but there is the opportunity to propose this as an innovation credit.

SS5.2 promotes a high proportion of open space to encourage biodiversity. There is no BREEAM equivalent.

SS7.1 and 7.2 refer to heat island effect which BREEAM does not cover, although green roofs are rewarded (for different reasons) under LE 4, LE 5, LE 6 and Pol 5.

Water Efficiency

WEP1 looks at water use reduction against a baseline, rather than setting an absolute target like BREEAM.

WE1 looks at irrigation which is included as Wat 6 in some BREEAM schemes, but not currently in BREEAM Offices 2008.

WE2 relates to BREEAM credit Wat 5, recycling, which is again not included in BREEAM Offices 2008.

In BREEAM there are 3 credits which reward specific design solutions or technologies, namely water meters, sanitary supply shut-off and major leak detection. LEED tends not to dictate design solutions, focussing instead on the intention (i.e. water use reduction).

Energy & Atmosphere

EAP2 requires the building to be designed to ASHRAE 90.1. This is more onerous than designing to CIBSE standards and UK Building Regulations, and there is no BREEAM equivalent. However, by designing to this standard, there is no need to specifically require technologies or design solutions, in the same way that BREEAM does. It gives designers more discretion.

EAP3 relates to refrigeration and is covered in the EU by legislation.

EA1 is roughly equivalent to Ene 1. However there are 2 key differences – it is stated in terms of improvement over a baseline in energy, rather than a target carbon amount, and is also stated in terms of COST of energy. This is also the case for EA2 which looks at renewable and is roughly equivalent to Ene 5.

There is a total of 11.85% available for BREEAM Offices 2008 Ene 1 for a zero carbon building (which relates to Building Regulation Part L calculations). The maximum number of points available under LEED is 19 for a 48% improvement on energy performance calculated from Appendix G baseline from ASHRAE 90.1-2007. Points are very roughly equivalent to 0.9%, so a maximum 17% in LEED for a very good low energy building versus almost 12% for a zero carbon building seems better value! The calculations are more onerous for ASHRAE than for Part L.

The other main difference in LEED is that Green Power is rewarded, whereas in BREEAM contracts with green energy suppliers is not rewarded.

Materials & Resources

MRP1 relates to storage for recyclable waste. This is similar to BREEAM but the areas required are much greater – almost double at smaller floor areas and 1.5 times as large at higher floor areas.

LEED generally deals in percentage improvements rather than absolute values. This applies to the reuse of materials too. There are a number of additional credits to BREEAM where items such as rapidly renewable materials, local materials and reuse of interior elements are rewarded.

Rather than focus on an accreditation scheme and chain of paperwork (which Mat 5 in BREEAM now uses), the intentions are stated and it is up to the assessor and design teams discretion to ensure compliance is met.

There is still a focus in both schemes for rewarded recycling rather than reducing waste in the first place.

Indoor Environmental Quality

IEQP1 relates to ASHRAE 62.1. There is no BREEAM equivalent as minimum ventilation rates are covered by Building Regulations.

IEQ1, IEQ2, IEQ3 and IEQ5 are quite sophisticated and beyond any current UK requirements. BREEAM does not reward well designed mechanically ventilated systems. If a building requires mech vent, LEED may well be the better accreditation to go for.

IEQ7.1 requires ability to measure post-occupancy thermal comfort. This is far and beyond BREEAM or CIBSE, but is picked up in BSRIA’s soft landing framework.

IEQ8 covers daylight and is similar in scope but uses a different methodology to BREEAM.

Weightings

Whilst LEED does not convert points into a percentage in the same way that BREEAM does, there was a considerable change in allocation of points per credit between LEED 2.0 and LEED 2009 which means there is now an implicit weighting. As this article points out, the new credit weightings heavily favor urban projects.

Comparing the weightings per credits for LEED 2.0 vs. LEED 2009

admin Accreditation BREEAM, LEED

I promised, what seems years ago, to write some thoughts on the differences between LEED and BREEAM. Initially I had intended to pull together the highlights into one article, as I was sure I had seen a credit by credit analysis elsewhere. I can’t now find that and this post had started to get monstrously long, so this is the first of 3 articles.

I’ve been BREEAM qualified since about 2002, around half my professional career, and LEED-AP for almost a year. BREEAM in particular has been good to me over the past decade although I do have my reservations.

For new readers or those coming from the US, you might want to start with my rough guide to BREEAM 2008. And for an excellent primer on LEED 2009, I cannot recommend highly enough this post over at Real Life LEED.

BSRIA have an excellent article here from February 2009 which covers some of the differences between the two schemes:

So is the dynamic tension between two competing systems desirable? Clearly, a one-size-fits-all assessment scheme would be difficult to achieve on a global basis. For example, water efficiency is a major issue in Dubai and Australia, but not in Scotland and nor in Wales. So different issues need to be ranked differently to match regional environment and regulations.

While LEED is dominated by the American ASHRAE standards, BREEAM takes it cue from European and UK legislation. The regional versions of both schemes flow from those antecedents.

BREEAM Gulf has been adapted for the local market. Gone are the Good, Very Good, and Excellent ratings, and in comes star ratings. The weightings are changed so that water is the key issue, rather than energy as in the standard UK schemes. In addition to the CIBSE guidance being the measure for certain credits, ASHRAE and other standards are also now referenced in BREEAM Gulf.

BREEAM has long been able to adapt to local contexts. With BREEAM Bespoke, for example, the assessor can work with BRE to develop assessment criteria specially tailored to a building where it doesn’t fit neatly into one of the existing schemes.

I would interject at this point and say that this is a bit of a fallacy. Whilst BREEAM Bespoke is flexible, the core content of the credits is already set out – clients often believe they will be able to write credits from scratch if they go down the BREEAM Bespoke route and can be disappointed when they find they can’t.

LEED, however, has not been created with this level of adaptability and it is not run that way. Instead it is fixed to the ASHRAE standards and the US way of thinking (for example, credits are awarded for having enough car parking spaces, rather than minimising them as in BREEAM).

There are also differences in the way LEED calculates credits. They are generally linked to the US Dollar (especially the energy credits), which means that if the exchange rate is unfavourable, then the building’s rating could suffer.

A key change that may make LEED more exportable is the introduction of regional bonus credits. Six regional priority credits will be available based on what the US-GBC’s regional councils and chapters deem important, environmentally, in that region.

A downside is that these credits are not available for non-US projects. However, there are national versions of LEED being developed by individual national green building councils. Canada was the first, followed by India. Countries such as Brazil and Italy are looking to have their own versions soon.

The table above is courtesy of Eszter Gulacsy from MTT/Sustain. It summarises the key differences between the two schemes, which I will go into some more detail in the next post.

A further consideration, going back to my post on politics in sustainability, is that BREEAM reflects UK thinking and LEED reflects US thinking. I have mapped where I think the two schemes might fall on the Nolan Chart:

Feel free to disagree with where I have placed them, I’m sure US readers will guffaw at my thinking that LEED is libertarian – it perhaps falls more into the centrist section?

Generally BREEAM dictates specific technologies or strategies, whereas LEED states the intention of the credit and leaves it up to the designers discretion as to how to meet it. This is an important difference. It would be interesting to compare the countries which have chosen BREEAM over LEED and see if there is any correlation to prevalent political thinking.

My next post in this series will begin to look at the detail, including a credit by credit breakdown of the two schemes.

admin Accreditation BREEAM, LEED

These are my links for December 28th through December 29th:

• BRE Trust reveals the results of DEC data analysis – ‘Energy used in public buildings accounts for 4% of the UK's carbon emissions. Design standards are improving, but we need to demonstrate that this is resulting in improved building performance. This study found that the DEC ratings for some schools recently refurbished to higher energy efficiency standards under Building Schools for the Future and the Primary Capital Programme appeared to be no better than average. If expected savings are not being made, we need to learn the reasons why. DECs are important because they measure the carbon emissions from real buildings as they are used.'
  It has been suggested that DECs should be made mandatory for all non-domestic buildings, to provide evidence of actual emissions and potential leverage for improvements. The BRE study found…DECs were generally giving consistent results. However, up to 9% of DEC data is unreliable as a guide to the energy and carbon performance of buildings because default ratings are being used…
• Engineering consultancy – Grontmij – News archive – 7 More London Riverside achieves BREEAM ‘outstanding’ rating – 7 More London Riverside has become only the third building in the UK and the first office in England to achieve the BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ award. This is the final major building to be completed for More London Development Ltd who are particularly proud of the building’s sustainable credentials.
  The 60,884m², 10 storey building, designed by Foster + Partners, incorporates a range of carbon saving measures, renewable energy provisions and efficient Building Services systems. These include sculpted solar shading, solar hot water panels, green roofs, heat recovery systems and fully automated Building Management Systems and metering facilities.
  The key design aspect that assisted in obtaining the ‘Outstanding’ rating was the implementation of a Bio-Diesel fired Combined Cooling Heating & Power (CCHP) Trigeneration system which has been used to provide a low carbon source of cooling, heat and power to the building. This has resulted in 74% less CO2 than…2006 Part L2 Building Regulations.

admin News analysis, BRE, BREEAM, buildings, case_study, DEC, existing, outstanding

I often get requests from students for help with dissertations (and this blog suffers from a fall in readers during the summer recess, so hello and thanks to all the students reading!). This one particularly stood out and was in response to my post BREEAM is a means to an end. Anthony makes some good points and I would be fascinated to hear what others think. Let’s have a little crowdsourcing and see if we can arrive at a consensus (or at least collate some good resources). My initial comment is that the first objective alone would encompass enough material to explore in a dissertation – the scope is certainly ambitious! So, read the request below and add comments where appropriate:

Dear Mel (and anyone else who picks this up)

I am an MSc Student preparing to write a Dissertation on “BREEAM is it worth it and does its careful design and implementation help or hinder the construction process” I have found reference to your BREAM on your website and was wondering if you still had the same thought and whether or not you cuold share some of them with me in relation to my dissertion outlined below,I would be most grateful for your thoughts and ides.

The Proposed Project:

The author is a consultant working for a University, managing an Enhanced Health and Safety/Construction Design and Management (CDM) Service. The University have a large scale building and refurbishment programme where one of their key objectives is to achieve an excellent rating on the British Research Establishments Environmental Assessment Model (BREEAM) for new builds and very good for refurbishments. As the CDM Co-ordinator (CDMC) the author has coordinated the design and construction of numerous multimillion pound projects where BREEAM has been successfully implemented. However in the opinion of others on the design team, it has been very difficult to achieve the required points.

It is the author’s opinion that the Clients desire for a sustainable property portfolio is driven by pressure from higher education funding bodies such as HEFCE (Higher Education Funding Council for England) who, prior to the release of funds will scrutinise the applicant for its green credentials.

The principle behind this paper is to ascertain if effective design and planning actually improves sustainability, safety and quality on projects or is the client being driven by public perception and corporate and social responsibilities and ultimately paying a high price for a building they cannot effectively manage!

Provisional Overall aim of the Project:

The overall aim of the project is to establish if implementing BREEAM is actually worth the time, money and whether design and execution of sustainable building techniques helps or hinders the construction process.

Specific Research Objectives:

The aim of the following objectives will assist in either proving or disproving if the provisional aim of the project is true or false. It is envisaged that the objectives listed below will be translated into questions for use within the questionnaire.

- To confirm if a sustainable building is what the Client actually wants or if the are they being forced into the process by outside factors such as planning authorities and funding bodies?

- To ascertain, roughly, who much additional costs does the implementation of BREEAM place on a construction project?

- Does the “Green Guide to Construction” interlace with BREEAM and modern building techniques?

- To establish if there is a correlation between the installations of highly technical equipment and an increase in construction site accidents due to an aging workforce.

As previously mentioned your assistance on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Kind regards

Anthony Heaton-Jones

admin Accreditation BREEAM, client, HEFCE, Sustainability

These are my links for October 13th through October 14th:

• Launch of HCA and English Heritage Guidance set to pave way for new approach to masterplanning – Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) – "The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) and English Heritage today launched its first joint 'How to' Guide outlining a new development-led approach to masterplanning, which advocates assessing the historic character of a site right at the earliest stages of redevelopment. This is set to transform the way sites are redeveloped.
  The Guide, 'Capitalising on the inherited landscape – an introduction to historic characterisation for masterplanning' is the product of an innovative joint pilot project between the two agencies. This took the established conservation-led Historic Characterisation approach – encouraging the use of specific techniques to identify the distinctive characteristics of a site in order to explain an inherited sense of place and identity – as a starting point – and tested its value at different stages of the development process."
• BREEAM: BREEAM Europe Commercial 2009 – "We are delighted to announce the release of the updated BREEAM Europe Commercial 2009 scheme. After four months of consultation with clients, assessors, experts and technical researchers, the new scheme combines the 2008 versions of BREEAM Europe Offices, Retail and Industrial. Key changes to the Commercial 2009 scheme include:
  * Introduction of minimum standards specific to Europe
  * Introduction of exemplary level requirements specific to Europe. Other types of innovation credits will not be available in Europe at this point in time.
  * Post Construction Stage assessment is now mandatory like in the UK in order to get the final certificate.
  * New shell only approach as in UK BREEAM v3.0 Schemes applicable.
  * The manual is now be freely available for download on the website for anyone to access. "

admin News BREEAM, commercial, EH, Europe, HCA, heritage, masterplanning