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Pre-construction / RIBA Plan of Work Stages 0–4 / OGC Gateway Stages 1–3C
Published in Duncan Cartlidge, Construction Project Manager’s Pocket Book, 2020
The measures adopted to assess sustainability performance – and developers and design teams are encouraged to consider these issues at the earliest possible opportunity – are: BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Assessment Method),BREEAM-In-Use – for existing buildings,LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design), andEcoHomes points / Code for Sustainable Homes.
Sustainability
Published in DAVIS LANGDON, Spon's Architects' and Builders' Price Book 2008, 2007
In order to achieve an Excellent rating under BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) a project must successfully meet a diverse range of criteria under the headings Management, Health & Wellbeing, Energy, Transport, Water, Materials & Waste, Land Use & Ecology and Pollution. It is likely that road transport taxation will increase significantly such that location will become an ever more important cost driver. BREEAM is not a mandatory system at the moment but is progressively being adopted as a good holistic measure of environmental impact, and this includes environmental ratings for homes, under the Ecohomes programme. The Code for Sustainable Homes has established a clear, staged path towards zero carbon housing developments over a defined timescale to 2016 In its 2003 Energy White Paper, the Government set out a long term goal of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by some 60% by about 2050, with real progress to be shown by 2020. Additional targets are to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 12.5% below base year levels by 2008-12 and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20% below 1990 levels by 2010. In May 2007, an update to the Energy White Paper indicated that, even though the numbers have changed, the UK remains on track to exceed its Kyoto commitment. These goals will be achieved through a range of strategic measures such as Part L of The Building Regulations and specific targets set by Local Authorities within the planning process. The purpose of this section is to review current trends in sustainable construction and highlight the costs for ten typical solutions that are being adopted to meet the renewable energy and water management challenges that are now emerging as a common theme, to varying degrees, within planning conditions for development projects of all types. These solutions will typically apply to large scale projects with suitable site conditions for the application of renewable technologies.
Is radical innovation in architecture crucial to sustainability? Lessons from three Scottish contemporary buildings
Published in Architectural Engineering and Design Management, 2018
Marianna Nigra, Branka Dimitrijevic
Within this context, three case studies of Scottish sustainable building projects have been selected for the analysis. The selected buildings have been recently completed in Scotland and have either received international awards or had been developed on the basis of a brief that included sustainability targets. These three projects are publicly funded. The rationale for selecting public projects has to do with the opportunity to foster innovation and to communicate the values of sustainable buildings (Nigra, 2010) by setting positive examples, as well as with the fact that the Scottish Government has issued guidelines on procurement of publicly funded buildings in Scotland (Scottish Government, 2013b), and therefore has set requirements for these types of projects. In particular, these guidelines highlight a range of existing environmental assessment tools used by the public sector (e.g. BREEAM, EcoHomes, Standard Assessment Procedure (SAP) and the National Home Energy Rating); encourage design solutions that maximise thermal efficiency, reduce carbon emissions, reduce floor area, use locally sourced materials and promote sustainable production; and recommend collaboration between project clients, designers, contractors, as well as sharing of data and outcomes of successful sustainable projects. The buildings analysed are the South Lanarkshire College Low Carbon Teaching Building, the Culloden Battlefield Visitor Centre, and the Robert Burns Birthplace Museum.
The unwritten history of green building rating tools: a personal view from some of the ‘founding fathers’
Published in Building Research & Information, 2020
In the residential market, the BRE again led the way with a version of BREEAM for New Homes launched in 1991. The first version of BREEAM New Homes was a direct adaptation from BREEAM version 2 for Offices and according to Howard it failed twice before a residential rating tool (Eco Homes) got some traction in the market (Howard, personal communication, February 13, 2019). Howard feels that BREEAM New Homes version 1 failed because it was too complex and expensive for homebuilders to accept and adopt. In addition, it only had the support of the third biggest house builder in the country (i.e. the two biggest UK home builders had advocated against it). A second version of the rating tool was released following a report by a management consultancy that concluded that the result needed to be pass/fail, however, this also failed to get market traction. BRE’s third attempt at a residential rating tool, now called EcoHomes and derived from BREEAM 98, was launched in 2000 and was supported by the National House Building Council as it was much simpler and cheaper to implement. Eco Homes were later used as the basis of the Code for Sustainable Homes, which was developed by BRE for the UK Government in 2006/7 and replaced EcoHomes in England and Wales. This Code became operational in 2007 and its implementation was managed by BRE Global. In 2008, the code became temporarily mandatory with the introduction of Home Information Packs, where sellers were required to issue buyers of newly constructed homes a sustainability certificate (either a Code for Sustainable Homes certificate or a nil-rated certificate). However, in 2010 the requirement for Home Information Packs was suspended along with the requirement for a sustainability certificate. In 2014, the Government in England signalled the winding down the Code for Sustainable Homes and since then the BRE has developed the Home Quality Mark, which is part of the BREEAM family.