BREEAM

Established in 1990, the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) is the world’s most established method of assessing, rating and certifying the sustainability of buildings.

BREEAM provides independent, third-party certification of the sustainability performance of buildings and infrastructure projects, assessing energy, water usage, health and wellbeing, pollution, materials, waste and management processes. Buildings are rated on a scale from ‘pass’ through to ‘outstanding’.

There is a growing body of evidence that sustainable buildings are no more costly to design and build than those that simply adhere to minimal regulatory requirements. Sustainability increasingly adds little or no upfront capital cost to a project, while typically incurring lower ongoing costs and running expenses, leading to substantial savings over the lifespan of a building. Achieving the standards laid out by BREEAM are considered an optimal way to achieve this, resulting in 96% of those organisations having a building assessed stating that they would use the scheme again.

In total, BREEAM has certified over half a million buildings across 70 countries, with a further two million registered for accreditation.