BREEAM (British Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) is a certification system for comparing sustainable buildings that exceed national standards.
As a quality label, BREEAM sets the standard for best practice in sustainable building design, construction and operation and encourages the market to focus on the environmental impact of products in buildings. Since it was first launched in 1990, BREEAM has become one of the most comprehensive and widely recognised measures of a building’s environmental performance
A BREEAM assessment uses recognised measures of performance, which are set against established benchmarks, to evaluate a building’s specification, design, construction and use. The measures used represent a broad range of categories and issues related to energy and water use, the internal environment (health and well-being), pollution, transport, materials, waste, land use and ecology, management and innovation, on which the building is evaluated.
Credits are awarded across the ten categories based on the outcomes of the building assessed. The credits are then combined to provide a single score, achieving either a Pass (≥ 30), Good (≥45), Very Good (≥55), Excellent (≥70) or Outstanding (≥ 85) overall BREEAM rating.
