BREEAM UK New Construction 2018 Consultation

BRE aims to review and update standards on a 3 to 4 year cycle and in September 2016 this process began in preparation for the launch of BREEAM UK New Construction 2018. The updated version of the scheme launched on 7 March 2018 and is now available online.

Why update?

BREEAM criteria promote performance that goes beyond regulatory levels and reflect current best practice. As such, it is essential that we periodically update our standards to maintain technical robustness and reflect changes in opportunity through evolving practice, technologies and market drivers (keeping abreast of changes within the industry, policy and regulations). Updates also provide an opportunity to address feedback from assessors, clients and other stakeholders to ensure the standard continues to deliver better buildings and value to the client.

Scope of the update?

A key part of the update process is reviewing all current technical requirements of the scheme to ensure they continue to reflect the principles of BREEAM including, delivering value to stakeholders and reflecting the latest industry developments , best practice standards, regulation & policy. For many technical issues changes are relatively minor.  However, for others the update resulted in more significant changes.

Below is a list of the key areas that were identified as the focus for the update:

Technical

  • Scheme Alignment
  • Performance Gap
  • Transport
  • Health & Wellbeing
  • Sector Tailoring
  • Materials
  • Unregulated and embodied Energy

Non-Technical

  • Scheme document accessibility
  • Digital tools
  • Value case
  • Data collection / analytics

Consultation Activities

The consultation for BREEAM UK New Construction 2018 has now closed. Thank you to all who participated.

The formal consultation was carried out in two stages. The initial consultation period ran from November 2016 to March 2017. At this stage, we were looking to gain feedback on the current scheme and the outline proposals for change including the key areas listed above. This involved a series of consultation activities including workshops, an online questionnaire, assessor workshops (via customer liaison workshops) and attendance at key conferences. The feedback received during the first phase of consultation informed the detailed development work to produce the second phase of the consultation process – the draft BREEAM UK New Construction 2018 scheme manual.

A draft of Guidance Note 32 (GN32) outlined the proposed approach for the detailed energy modelling criteria in Ene 01 and further details on the post-occupancy stage.

Feedback

The opportunity to comment on the draft UK New Construction scheme ended on the 3 November 2017, and we reviewed all feedback received from across the industry during the consultation period.

Thank you so much to all those who responded and gave us your comments, we really appreciate it! The consultation response has now been published and is available to download opposite.

Timeframes

The consultation on the draft manual closed for comments on the 3 November 2017.

The new BREEAM UK New Construction 2018 scheme launched on 7 March 2018. On 23 March 2018 the BREEAM UK New Construction 2014 scheme will close for registrations. We advise assessors and clients to review current (and potential) projects and, where required, register these as early as possible. Please speak to your assessors for further details on registrations and transition arrangements.

Scheme Changes

A summary of the changes made to the BREEAM UK New Construction 2014 scheme can be downloaded here and the new 2018 version of the standard can be downloaded here. You can also find out more about the changes by listening to our forthcoming webinar on 10 April 2018. Click here to visit the BRE Academy website to register.