Toolkit

A key objective of the UK Green Building Council is to bring clarity, consistency and leadership on sustainability to the construction sector. As part of this aim, we pledged to undergo a review of sustainability tools, to improve guidance for those involved in green building on what tools should be used, how they should be used and when.

In summer 2007 we sent a questionnaire to all our members to find out what tools were being used, covering all aspects of construction. It was clear from the responses that as a priority we should examine the Building Environmental Assessment Tools, in particular BREEAM.

BREEAM

A further questionnaire was sent to members on Building Environmental Assessment Tools (click here to view) and a workshop was held in September 2007 (click here to view) with the support of BRE, to get further input from members on BREEAM. This included examining issues such as the scope, technical rigour, governance and design/use of the tool.

The workshop highlighted that in BREEAM, our current predominant assessment method, we have a highly rigorous tool with much to its credit. However, if was clear that if the UK-GBC is to provide instructive guidance, to drive dramatic progress, there are concerns with BREEAM that need to be addressed, and improvements that should be considered.

Following this review, further discussion took place between UK-GBC and BRE and the two organisations have committed to a partnership to further develop and promote BREEAM and associated tools. The UK-GBC will help facilitate Expert Working Groups that will advise the independent Sustainability Board on future technical developments, and facilitate dialogue with other Green Building Councils and environmental assessment methodologies (such as LEED and Green Star) to enable sharing of best practice and learning to inform future development of such tools in the UK and internationally.

OTHER TOOLS

We have announced the next two areas of sustainability tool that members will review; product stewardship certification schemes, and as identified above, the sharing of best practice and learning from other GBCs environmental assessment methodologies.

Product Stewardship

The UK-GBC will be holding an event to determine how the principles of product stewardship can be implemented rapidly throughout the construction industry. We will compare and contrast the various different product stewardship schemes currently available including those of the Marine Stewardship Council, Forestry Stewardship Council, and the work of the Eden Project in sourcing copper for the roof of their Core building. Our objective is to inform the development of new stewardship schemes based on experience so far.

Environmental Assessment Methodologies

We will bring together experts and practitioners with experience of environmental assessment methodologies used by other Green Building Councils with the aim of identifying the key issues that need to be addressed in developing the next generation of methodologies. The table below provides information on some existing international tools which are used by other Green Building Councils:

INTERNATIONAL TOOLS
Green Star (Green Building Council of Australia)	View website	GBCAUS are responsible for the Green Star Scheme which is a comprehensive, national, voluntary environmental rating scheme that evaluates the environmental design and achievements of buildings. Green Star is a comprehensive, national, voluntary environmental rating scheme that evaluates the environmental design and achievements of buildings. Each Green Star rating tool was created to assess the environmental performance of buildings in a specific sector (office, retail, healthcare, education) at a distinct phase in the development cycle (design or construction and maintenance).
LEED (U.S. Green Building Council)	View website	The USGBC are responsible for The Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System. LEED is the nationally accepted benchmark for the design, construction and operation of high performance green buildings. LEED gives building owners and operators the tools they need to have an immediate and measurable impact on their buildings' performance. LEED promotes a whole-building approach to sustainability by recognizing performance in five key areas of human and environmental health: sustainable site development, water savings, energy efficiency, materials selection and indoor environmental quality.
CASBEE (The Japan Sustainable Building Consortium)	View website	CASBEE is composed of four assessment tools corresponding to the building lifecycle. The "CASBEE Family" consists of 4 types of tools and the expanded tools for specific purposes. The assessment tools are for: - Pre-design - New Construction - Existing Building - Renovation. Each tool is intended for a separate purpose and target user, and is designed to accommodate a wide range of uses (offices, schools, apartments, etc.) in the evaluated buildings. Research and development of CASBEE have been carried out as a cooperative project between industry, government and academia. The newly-formed JSBC (Japan Sustainable Building Consortium) and its affiliated sub-committees provide overall management of CASBEE, and the secretariat is set within the Institute for Building Environment and Energy Conservation. CASBEE

Please come back and check this toolkit page and our events calendar frequently for further information about our continuing work on tools. In the meantime, the following table highlights a small number of tools that are useful across a range of areas and construction phases and provides some basic information; this is not intended to be a comprehensive list and will gradually be expanded over the coming weeks and months.

UK TOOLS
TOOL	LINK & CONTACT	DESCRIPTION
BREEAM Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology	View website Contact: BREEAM Office + 44 (0) 1923 664462	The BREEAM family of assessment methods and tools are all designed to help construction professionals understand and mitigate the environmental impacts of the developments they design and build. BREEAM Buildings and BREEAM Tools act at different stages of the construction process: - Manufacture of building materials (BREEAM Specification: The Green Guide) - Design stage (BREEAM Buildings and BREEAM Envest) - Construction (BREEAM Smartwaste) - Post construction (BREEAM Buildings) The methods and tools also cover different scales of construction activity: - BREEAM Developments is useful at the master planning stage for large development sites like new settlements and communities - BREEAM Buildings assesses the operational and the embodied environmental impacts of individual buildings
CEEQUAL Civil Engineering Environmental Quality Assessment and Award Scheme	View website Contact: Crane Environmental +44 (0)20 8399 4389 or CIRIA + 44 (0)20 7549 3302	CEEQUAL is an awards scheme assessing the environmental quality of civil engineering projects. Its objective is to encourage the attainment of environmental excellence in civil engineering projects, and thus to deliver improved environmental performance in project specification, design and construction. CEEQUAL uses a rigorous points-scoring-based assessment, which is applicable to any civil engineering project and includes environmental aspects such as the use of water, energy and land as well as ecology, landscape, nuisance to neighbours, archaeology, waste minimisation and management, and community amenity. A CEEQUAL award publicly recognises the achievement of high environmental performance. Awards are made to projects in which the clients, designers and contractors go beyond the legal and environmental minima to achieve distinctive environmental standards of performance. The five awards are: - Whole Project Award (jointly by or on behalf of the client, designer and principal contractor(s) - Client & Design Award - Design Award, applied for by the principal designer(s) only - Construction Award, which can be applied for by the principal contractor(s) - Design & Build Award for Design & Build and other partnership contracts.
DQI Design Quality Indicator	View website Contact: CIC + 44 (0) 20 7399 7424 dqi@cic.org.uk	The Design Quality Indicator (DQI) is a pioneering process for evaluating design quality of buildings; it can be used by everyone involved the development process to contribute to improving the quality of our built environment. DQI is a generic toolkit which can be used with all types of building. There is also a version specifically aimed at school buildings, the DQI for Schools. DQI encompasses issues which are relevant at all stages in the development of a building and the tool should be used throughout the life of the project. DQI collects views from respondents about building's functionality, build quality and impact. There are four versions of DQI relevant to different phases of the project that is being assessed: - The brief version is used to help a group of key stakeholders form a consensus about priorities and ambitions for the design brief by defining what aspects are fundamental what would add value and what would achieve excellence in the completed building. - Mid-design version allows the client and design teams to check whether early aspirations have been met and make adjustments accordingly in focus and quality, and can be used throughout the design phase when things are not too late to change. - Ready for occupation version is used to check whether the brief/original intent has been achieved immediately at occupation. - In-use version is used in order to receive feedback from the project team and the building users to help make improvements for this project and the next.
SE Checklist South East Sustainability Checklist	View website Contact: SE Checklist + 44 (0)20 7422 1777 info@checklistsoutheast.co.uk	The Checklist is a new, easy-to-use online tool that has been developed by SEEDA and BRE. Devised specifically to guide the design of new developments by making sense of current policy, the Checklist highlights best practice, complementing Ecohomes and the new Code for Sustainable Homes. The Checklist covers regionally specific sustainability and planning issues, emphasising those of higher priority. It can also be adapted to reflect locally significant concerns. The Checklist complements Ecohomes/BREEAM and the Code for Sustainable Homes by looking at issues relevant to the overall development scale, helping developers, local authorities and other interested parties to deliver sustainable communities. The Checklist is intended for use at the design and planning application stages of a new development. It focuses on the sustainability issues pertinent to spatial planning, although it does address those construction and 'in-use' issues that can be anticipated or influenced at the design phase. The tool identifies a range of sustainability issues covered in the Regional Spatial Strategy for the South East enabling users to assess to what extent a design proposal will deliver on each issue.
SMARTwaste SMARTStart SMARTStart+ SMARTAudit	http://www.smartwaste.co.uk Contact: SMARTWaste + 44 (0)1923 664471 smartwaste@bre.co.uk	SMARTWaste Reducing waste saves money and is always the best environmental option. BRE has developed the SMARTWaste suite of tools and consultancy services; designed for the construction and demolition industries, SMARTWaste can be applied to any waste generating activity. SMARTStart is a quick and easy waste benchmarking tool for the construction industry. Simple to use, it defines EPIs (Environmental Performance Indicators) and KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) for waste generation on each project and company-wide. If you generate waste, SMARTStart can help you define waste streams, prioritise your waste strategy and meet environmental reporting requirements. This tool is designed for use by construction, facilities or waste management contractors as part of day-to-day activities. SMARTStart+ is for companies that want to: compare performance across sites, projects and contracts; set performance targets for recycling and segregation; monitor companies and contractors on a site-by-site and company-wide basis. This tool is designed for construction, facilities or waste management contractors as part of day-to-day activities. SMARTAudit is a robust tool to identify the type and amount of waste products generated on site from the processes causing it to what it costs. Identify waste and target it at source to reduce it and maximise recycling potential. SMARTAudit requires more effort than SMARTStart to collect data - but ' you get out what you put in'. This tool is designed for use by SMARTAuditors, trained either by BRE or through developing in-house and on-site capability.
Envest2 Environmental impact & whole life costs analysis for buildings	View website Contact: ENvest2 + 44 (0)1923 664300 envest@bre.co.uk	Envest 2 is a software tool that simplifies the complex process of designing buildings with low environmental impact and whole life costs. Envest 2 allows both environmental and financial tradeoffs to be made explicit in the design process, allowing the client to optimise the concept of best value according to their own priorities. Designers input their building designs (height, number of storeys, window area, etc) and choices of elements (external wall, roof covering, etc). Envest 2 identifies those elements with the most influence on the building's environmental impact and whole life cost and shows the effects of selecting different materials, predicting the environmental and cost impact of various strategies for heating, cooling and operating a building. Designers can graphically demonstrate the environmental and financial credentials of different designs to clients. Environmental data may be presented as a range of 12 impacts, from climate change to toxicity, as well as a single Ecopoint score, for ease of communication, especially in comparison with costs. Envest 2 is web based, allowing large design companies to store and share information in a controlled way, enabling in-house benchmarking and design comparison.
RC Toolkit WRAP's Evaluation Tool for Recycled Content in Construction Projects	View website Contact: WRAP + 44 (0)808 100 2040 http://www.wrap.org.uk/	The RC toolkit will assesses the level of recycled content in a construction project and identifies the most significant opportunities to use more recycled materials without increasing cost. The toolkit can be used at an early stage in the development process to estimate the likely level of recycled content in an outline design / specification. It can also be used throughout the development process, ultimately enabling a user to demonstrate how a project achieves a specific level of recycled content.