BREEAM ~ Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method
The term BREEAM is one that I’ve come across in various contexts over the course of this project and thought I’d better find out what it means…
BREEAM is a widely used environmental assessment method for buildings. The assessments are carried out by qualified practitioners. For many types of development, assessments are a prerequisite.
Through application of the method buildings are assessed against a set of criteria and given an overall score which will fall within a banding, this then provides a rating of: PASS, GOOD, VERY GOOD or EXCELLENT. Certain minimum standards are set - for example, the Welsh Development Agency requires that all buildings constructed on land sold by them must achieve a minimum VERY GOOD rating.
The method is applicable to most types of building, with bespoke versions of the method available for large non-standard buildings like prisons and schools & for non U.K. buildings etc.
Pre-assessment estimators are available for you to see the depths to which the assessment goes. Probably of most relevance for us is the Ecohomes pre-assessment estimator. From this you can see that a wide range of criteria are used to assess the building - from CO2 emissions to sound insulation and the amounts of daylight.
Note that …
In April 2007 the Code for Sustainable Homes replaced Ecohomes for the assessment of new housing in England.
More on the Code for Sustainable Homes here.
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