News
Fact Box – Building Environmental Assessment Methods
3rd July 2009
With climate change and environmental issues on the agenda, recent years have witnessed demand and pressure on developers and construction companies to erect buildings that meet certain design specifications. This ensures that the construction’s positive impacts are enhanced, and the negative ones are minimised, both environmentally and socially. Various green building ratings exist that reflect different climatic and environmental conditions whereby the process of certification is often the main differentiator. The most successful ones are characterised by their relative simplicity; a brief selection is illustrated below.
BREEAM (BRE Environment Assessment Method)
Developed by the Building Research Establishment in 1990, UK, it is the world’s mostly widely used accreditation method with 110,000 buildings certified and over half a million registered for certification. BREEAM certification ranges from ‘pass’ to ‘outstanding’ and encompasses the environmental impacts of management, health and well-being, energy, transport, water, material and waste, landuse and ecology, and pollution. BREEAM building assessments are required by various regulatory and government organisations in the UK (e.g. all healthcare buildings). Depending on the type of development, there is a spectrum of BREEAM criteria, and schemes are tailored to any specific country or region.
LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design)
Established by the US Green Building Council in 1998, LEED is a suite of standards for environmentally sustainable construction. The six main major areas addressed are: sustainable sites, water efficiency, energy and atmosphere, materials and resources, indoor environmental quality, innovation and design process, with the largest emphasis on energy. The credit point system ranges from ‘certified’ to ‘platinum’. LEED encompasses over 5 billion ft2 of projects in USA and 30 other countries (14,000 projects); the rating systems vary depending on project type (homes, schools, retail etc), however, unlike BREEAM, it is less adaptable to local conditions, making it less robust. An example of a LEED certified (gold) building is the 7 World Trade Centre in New York.
Green Star
Established by Green Building Council Australia (2003) and used nationally only, it is a comprehensive and voluntary environmental rating system that evaluates the environmental design and construction of buildings. It covers the impact areas of management, indoor environmental quality, energy, transport, water, materials, land use & ecology, emissions and innovation, occupant health and productivity, as well as cost savings. The rating system is a three point scale ranging from 4-6 stars. It is continuously reviewed and draws on the best features of the existing rating systems, making it perhaps slightly more complex than LEED and BREEAM.
Interestingly, BRE, USGBC and GBCA signed a Memorandum of Understanding at UK Ecobuild in March 2009 that will enable the organisations to develop common metrics to measure emissions of CO2 equivalents from new homes and buildings. As the head of GBCA argues, ‘Climate change is a global problem, so it is vital that we find a global solution.’