Standards - BREEAM

Address: Air Quality Plan Limited Royal House, Fareham, Hampshire, PO15 5TJ, UK
Telephone: 01489 575733

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What is BREEAM?

What is BREEAM? BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) is a sustainability assessment method that is used to masterplan projects, infrastructure and buildings. BREEAM Claims to be the world’s leading science-based suite of validation and certification systems for a more sustainable built environment. BREEAM assessments are globally appreciated as a method of assessment and ranking, having certified 250,000 buildings to date and with more than a million further projects registered to be assessed and rated. The BREEAM environmental assessment was introduced in 1990 and it has evolved since then to become recognised as the most reliable, accurate and practical measure of a building’s environmental credentials.

What Do BREEAM Assessments Involve?

The BREEAM assessment covers the viability of a building's design, construction and operation and ensures compliance with recognised standards and regulations. 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 criteria from energy to ecology. Each category focuses on the most influential factors, including reduced carbon emissions, low impact design, adaptation to climate change, ecological value and biodiversity protection. Credits are awarded for various performance measures and typically projects target selected credits order to achieve a desired BREEAM rating.

BREEAM’s third-party certification involves the validation of the assessment by impartial experts known as BREEAM Assessors. BREEAM Assessors are qualified and licensed to ensure the assessment meets BREEAM quality and performance standards.

Where do Air Quality Plan fit into this?

Under the Health and Wellbeing category, BREEAM allocates credits related to air quality under category Hea 02 Indoor Air Quality. The BREEAM Hea02 environmental assessments process considers a broad range of relevant factors covering air quality and credits can be gained for various aspects including having an Air Quality Plan for he project, building ventilation design, use of low VOC construction products and post construction air testing. In later version of the BREEAM standard the Indoor Air Quality Plan is a pre-requisite of Hea02 and is required to achieve any credits under this section.

Air Quality Plan Ltd can prepare the necessary BREEAM Indoor Air Quality Plan documentation and on project completion, can carry out the required indoor air quality testing. We only use our own in-house consultants who have significant experience and training in air quality monitoring. So you can be comforted with the knowledge that your project is in the hands of experienced and knowledgeable experts in the field.

It is essential that testing for Formaldehyde and VOCs is carried out to the specified BREEAM Hea02 exacting standard required on your project. All tests must be analysed in a UKAS accredited laboratory.

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