Sustainability LEED vs BREEAM

or LEED systems, but with local variations. This concerns Alfonso Ponce-Alvarez, director of marketing and international affairs at the Centre Scientifique et Technique du Batiment, which helped to set up the Sustainable Buildings Alliance (SBA). Despite this continuing proliferation of green rating systems, the SBA, a body which aims to develop common metrics in green construction, says there needs to be a global standard because of the lack of co-ordination by scheme operators. ‘This situation is profoundly unhelpful for those businesses wanting to reach a global standard,’ Ponce-Alvarez insists. But Angus McIntosh, head of research at property

MediaCityUK, shown on the cover, was the first project to be accredited under the new BREEAM Communities scheme.

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having more bespoke options – although these can become costly. Additionally, it has been criticised for being less market friendly and slow to respond to queries, he says. There are many other assessment methods currently

being devised, or already in use, by countries around the world that are very much based on the BREEAM

BREEAM vs LEED

BREEAM

The BRE Environmental Assessment Method was created by BRE, a UK building research organisation funded mainly by the government. It has about 15 different schemes that assess the performance of buildings across nine categories: • Management: overall management policy, commissioning site management and procedural issues;

• Energy use: operational energy and carbon dioxide (CO2) issues;

• Health and well-being: indoor and external issues affecting health and well-being;

• Pollution: air and water pollution issues; • Transport: transport-related CO2 and location- related factors;

This situation

is profoundly unhelpful for those businesses wanting to reach a global standard –

Alfonso Ponce- Alvarez

32

CIBSE Journal May 2010

• Land use: greenfield and brownfield sites; • Ecology: ecological value conservation and enhancement of the site;

• Materials: environmental implication of building materials, including life-cycle impacts; and • Water: consumption and water efficiency.

LEED

The first pilot system for LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environment Design) was launched in the US in 1998, largely inspired by and based on BREEAM. LEED was created to: define ‘green building’ by establishing a common standard of measurement; promote integrated, whole-building design practices;

recognise environmental leadership in the building industry; stimulate green competition; raise consumer awareness of green building benefits; and transform the building market. LEED awards credits on a project’s performance in

the following nine areas: • Sustainable sites: site selection and management during construction;

• Water efficiency: encourages smarter use of water; • Energy and atmosphere: encourages a wide variety of energy strategies;

• Materials and resources: the selection of

sustainably grown, harvested, produced and transported products and materials;

• Indoor environmental quality: promotes strategies

that improve indoor air as well as providing access to natural daylight and views and improving acoustics;

• Locations and linkages: encourage homes being

built away from environmentally-sensitive places;

• Awareness and education: encourages

homeowners to be educated in how to operate their energy-efficient homes.

• Innovation in design: provides bonus points for projects that use new and innovative technologies and strategies; and

• Regional priority: localised credits for six US regions.

Sources: www.usgbc.org/leed, www.breeam.org

consultancy King Sturge, argues that analyses of which rating system is best can be short-sighted when it comes to the long-term goal of creating sustainable towns and cities. In his view a project can only be sustainable if all social, economic and environmental aspects are met. ‘I liken this to running four times around a running track and when you get to the white line, the white tape, you will be there,’ he says. ‘We’re somewhere on the crown of the first bend of understanding this whole issue. What is a sustainable city? What is a sustainable building? How are we going to measure it, how are we going to incentivise it? How are we going to tax people on it? We’re only just beginning to learn.’ l

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