BREEAM V7 Pre-Release

Last week we posted about the recent news from BRE regarding the pre-release of the BREEAM UK Non-domestic Version 7 manual.

Envision has now completed a detailed review of the changes, which you can read here.

Some key features are:

Key drivers –

• Increased importance is placed on embodied carbon and the use of life cycle assessments (LCA’s) on projects, specifically aligning more with the LETI embodied carbon templates and the use of data in kgCO₂e/m₂. 
• Maintain the level for health and wellbeing, aligning with new standards for natural and artificial light, which previously focused on outdated methodologies. 
• Re-focus the weighting of energy and carbon on grid emission factors, increase the use of prediction of operational energy consumption data, and push for the electrification of buildings.

RIBA Stage 2 requirements remain – RIBA Stage 2, or concept design, credits remain within V7, with some being required to achieve Outstanding ratings. Therefore, please get a BREEAM assessor on board for your projects as early in the process as possible as early action will continue to be important for higher ratings.

New minimum standards – many minimum standards remain from the existing V6 standards, with some additions particularly with Excellent and Outstanding ratings:

• There is a huge drive towards completing Life Cycle Assessments for projects, with an LCA required to be completed at any stage for an Excellent and every stage for an Outstanding. 
• A form of TM54 analysis is now required for an Excellent and Outstanding rating. 
• A new requirement for natural light, and achieving good daylight factors, is a minimum requirement for an Outstanding rating. This will penalise buildings with deep floor plates which do not offer good daylight penetration. 
• The water consumption baselines have been increased, meaning achieving the required improvements over the baseline for Good ratings and above are now harder. There is also a slight change in the % required to achieve credits.  
• The impact of refrigerants, and their emissions, has been included as a mandatory for Excellent and Outstanding ratings. 

Scoring – There are no changes to the weighting process for V7, however the threshold for ‘pass’ and ‘good’ ratings have been reduced by 5% each (40% and 25% respectively). 

Simple buildings – The ‘simple buildings’ approach has been removed from the UK scheme.

EU Taxonomy alignment – Across the scheme there is a much better alignment with EU taxonomy requirements, with overlap between evidence for BREEAM and evidence for EU taxonomy. 

Ultimately, as always expected from the BRE, the V7 scheme is a step change than the previous V6, with the aim to always push forwards sustainability in the built environment and ‘raise the bar’ for sustainability as a whole. Our detailed review of the changes within each category for BREEAM V7 can be found here, but if you would like to understand how BREEAM V7 will impact you, and your future developments, please get in touch at contact@envisioneco.com.

Please note that developments won’t be assessed against Version 7 for some time (Envision will give you as much warning as possible on timescales for this), however the pre-release gives us a great opportunity to plan for these future changes in development projects.