The BREEAM UK New Construction 2018 technical manual has been reissued to version 3.0 and is available here.
The reissue is primarily focused upon providing non-technical improvements to the clarity of the Land Use and Ecology section and several minor corrections and clarifications throughout the manual. The reissue also confirms the changes in Ene 01, in accordance with the recently updated Guidance Note 32.
The changes to Ene 01 are related to providing greater flexibility for meeting the minimum Excellent standard within Ene 01, by having an alternative route. This is through achieving credits for the ‘Prediction of operational energy consumption’, where the operational energy performance has been substantially improved as a result of the process undertaken to achieve those credits.
The changes to Land Use and Ecology are driven by assessor feedback from technical queries and customer liaison workshops, which has highlighted that greater clarity is needed for these issues. These changes have been reviewed at different stages by a selected group of assessors, who had previously given feedback and expressed particular interest in the update to the ecology issues.
The changes to Land Use and Ecology do not alter the underlying compliance requirements of these assessment issues. They focus on improving the clarity of the assessment criteria requirements for both methodological routes (now named Foundation and Comprehensive to reflect the level of expertise and value they have). The reissue also covers what is expected of Assessors, Ecologists and other stakeholders involved in the process, as well as the available resources supporting the assessment. This will be followed up with further support and improvements including updated guidance notes to enhance clarity and to align with the technical manual reissue.
This is part of a broader effort to help with the transition to the new issues in BREEAM UK New Construction 2018 and will be followed up with further support and improvements, which we will keep all stakeholders up to date with.