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Breeam a little Breeam

Open-access content 18th May 2009
A new assessment scheme - Breeam In-Use - will help to evaluate the environmental performance of existing buildings and take the most effective action to reduce energy

by Simon Guy


21 May 2009


The environmental performance of an organisation's built assets is a key factor in its sustainability credentials and carbon footprint. Operating a building also represents a major cost - with increasing energy prices and the current challenging economic outlook, cutting energy, water, waste and other such costs can be a relatively easy way of maintaining or improving profitability.

With the rate of renewal of our building stock, currently estimated to be around 1-2 per cent each year, it will take us in the region of 100 years or more to replace our all our current buildings with new stock that is more environmentally friendly - and therefore the challenge of improving the sustainability of existing stock is enormous.

The question is, how do organisations assess, enhance and credibly demonstrate the environmental performance of their buildings? There are already well established schemes for assessing the environmental performance of buildings at the design and construction stages - Breeam being the most robust and long-lived of these. A new version of Breeam - Breeam In-Use - is now available so that all those involved in occupying, procuring or managing existing buildings can evaluate - and improve - the performance of their property assets and the quality of their management regimes.

Reducing operational costs and impacts


It is far easier making changes to a building at the design stage to improve its environmental performance, than it is with an existing building. Breeam In-Use therefore focuses on operational aspects and performance in use, comparing this to the potential performance of the building. It covers the major environmental issues which affect buildings, including energy and greenhouse gas emissions, water, waste, air quality, noise, lighting and property protection.

Breeam In-Use is a methodology that has been developed with ease of access in mind. It has been designed for building occupiers and managers who might not necessarily have the specialist or detailed knowledge of energy, water or waste issues and in this sense has been produced with the mass market in mind and with the intention of making a difference to buildings of all shapes and sizes, in all parts of the country. Breeam In-Use evaluates:
  • the building itself (giving it an asset rating)

  • the operation of the building (building management rating)

  • the way the building occupiers manage their activities (organisational rating).


The system is flexible enough for it to be applied to an individual building or a collection of buildings, or to an entire property portfolio or sub-parts of it.

The information obtained will allow building stakeholders to establish the sustainability of their buildings - including all non-domestic commercial, industrial, retail and institutional buildings - and of their operation and activities. This in turn will help them to both reduce their costs and demonstrably improve their environmental performance.

Breeam In-Use will also ultimately be a major benefit to everyone in the construction and property sector in that it will become a major repository of information on the performance and improvement potential of the UK non-domestic building stock. While data from organisations will be kept on a strictly confidential basis BRE Global will be able to extrapolate generic data providing trends on a national basis and at some point in the future provide a 'state of the nation' assessment of the performance of our existing building stock - this facet of Breeam In-Use will be immensely valuable to us all.

  • A pan-European version of Breeam, applied recently to retail developments by members of the International Council of Shopping Centres (ICSC). The first three projects from ICSC members area the C&A Eco-store in Mainz, Germany by developer Redevco; Forum Duisburg, Germany by Multi Development; and Docks 76 in Rouen, France by Unibail-Rodamco

  • A version of Breeam for the Gulf, specifically tailored to the climate and construction practices of the region


New Breeam Outstanding


Breeam In-Use is part of the family of Breeam schemes which now cover new, refurbished and existing buildings. The 2008 version of these schemes introduced a new Outstanding rating for exceptional buildings and the first such raring for a design stage assessment was awarded in March this year to Gazeley's G Park Blue Planet distribution centre in Staffordshire. The development is powered by a biomass plan and targeted to be carbon positive, with water water-efficient fittings, Green guide A and A+ rated materials and green spaces and habitats which are accessible to the general public.

Simon Guy is head of marketing at building research consultancy BRE Global

Further information on Breeam In-Use can be found at www.breeam.org/inuse and for general information on go to www.breeam.org/register


Around the world

Breeam is now increasingly applied to buildings outside the UK. In particular this includes:
  • A pan-European version of Breeam, applied recently to retail developments by members of the International Council of Shopping Centres (ICSC) • The first three projects from ICSC members area the C&A Eco-store in Mainz, Germany by developer Redevco; Forum Duisburg, Germany by Multi Development; and Docks 76 in Rouen, France by Unibail-Rodamco

  • A version of Breeam for the Gulf, specifically tailored to the climate and construction practices of the region

  • A number of Green Building Councils throughout the world are also looking to actively adopt Breeam

  • Breeam-rated Docks 76 retail development in Rouen, France by developer Unibail-Rodamco

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