BRE Renationalisation, Ownership, Certification, Fire safety testing, UK eco building news
BRE News – Building Research Establishment
Building Research Establishment: UK research, advisory, training, testing, certification & standards
14 May 2022
Firefighters call for building safety body to be renationalised
BRE to be renationalised
The Fire Brigades Union has committed to fighting for the Building Research Establishment (BRE) to be renationalised (yesterday, 13 May).
The commitment came in the form of a motion passed at the union’s annual conference, the first in-person conference since the pandemic. In the union’s view BRE’s private ownership has led to failures of competency, and BRE going too far to please the corporate clients whose products it tested and whom it relied on for income.
The BRE is involved in the testing and certification of materials for the construction industry. It was responsible for testing several of the key materials used in Grenfell Tower’s refurbishment, including cladding and insulation materials, and fire safety tests. BRE was privatised in 1997, and continues to test building materials as a private company today.
In the motion the union describes this privatisation as a “disastrous decision, opening the testing regime to commercial pressures and commercial interests”, and says that renationalisation would “ensure greater accountability, including a clear obligation to act in the public interest and without pressure from business and commercial interest”.
Grenfell Tower London:
In its submissions to the Grenfell Tower Inquiry the union has previously expressed the view (page 38, para 101) that errors and oversights at the BRE contributed to the Grenfell Tower fire, and that BRE testing allowed manufacturing companies to persuade others that their products were regulation-compliant, and that these errors and oversights were caused at least in part by the BRE being privately owned.
Matt Wrack, FBU general secretary, said:
“Building Research Establishment private ownership has been a complete disaster. Corners have been cut and building safety compromised as the BRE bowed down to the building material companies which pay its wages. There is even information that suggests that BRE failures may have had a role in Grenfell. It’s time to end this utter mess now.”
The conference motion specified that “Oversight of this restored public testing and research facility should be by a board, representative of tenants and residents, local and national government, trade unions representing workers in Fire and Rescue Services and the construction industry”.
photograph : Metropolitan Police
The motion was proposed by the Nottinghamshire, and reads in full below:
BRE Public Ownership
Building Research Establishment – Public Ownership
The Grenfell Tower disaster has exposed multiple failings in the building safety regime in the UK, including in the development, testing and certification of materials for the construction industry. The privatisation of the Building Research Establishment (BRE) has been exposed as a disastrous decision, opening the testing regime to commercial pressures and commercial interests.
Conference instructs the Executive Council to lobby for the BRE to be returned to full public ownership. This shall ensure greater accountability, including a clear obligation to act in the public interest and without pressure from business and commercial interest. Oversight of this restored public testing and research facility should be by a board, representative of tenants and residents, local and national government, trade unions representing workers in Fire and Rescue Services and the construction industry.
BRE Renationalisation information from the Fire Brigades Union, Bradley House 68, Coombe Road, Kingston upon Thames, KT2 7AE, United Kingdom
Grenfell Tower in West London
Grenfell Tower in West London:
Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry Part Two
Grenfell Tower Fire Inquiry Part Two
Grenfell Tower Hackitt Review
Grenfell Tower Hackitt Review
3 May 2018
BREEAM Director News
BRE announces new Director of BREEAM
Ethical and sustainable construction champion Dr Shamir Ghumra takes on a new role at helm of BREEAM – the leading international portfolio of sustainability standards (including CEEQUAL and Home Quality Mark) that has been driving global improvements in buildings and infrastructure for over two decades.
Formerly Director of Sustainable Products at BRE, Shamir has a strong background in ethical construction, leading on the development of BRE Global’s Ethical Labour Standard BES 6002 as a way for organisations to evaluate and eradicate modern slavery from their supply chains.
Shamir said “I am very pleased to take on this role as Director of BRE Global’s flagship sustainability certification scheme BREEAM which is now being actively applied to buildings in over 70 countries around the world. I look forward to meeting and working with our many partners, assessors and international clients as we collectively use BREEAM to Build a better world together benefitting people, businesses and our planet.”
BRE’s Acting CEO Niall Trafford said “Shamir has a formidable track record in sustainability. I have no doubt that BREEAM will greatly benefit from his knowledge, international experience and his strong beliefs in driving business ethics, sustainability and responsible growth.”
Previous to joining BRE Shamir was Principal Consultant at Responsible Solutions and Head of Sustainability at Aggregate Industries. He is also a board member and co-founder of the Supply Chain Sustainability School and a Fellow of Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment.
20 Apr 2018
BREEAM Standard News
BRE and Measurabl announce leading-edge integration with the BREEAM Standard
BRE and Measurabl announce leading-edge integration with the BREEAM Standard to improve the financial performance of commercial real estate
BREEAM’s API with the Measurabl platform offers an easy way for facility managers and building owners to save time and improve accuracy of sustainability reporting and third party certification
BRE have today announced the launch of its integration of BREEAM, the world’s leading sustainability assessment method for master planning projects, infrastructure and buildings, with Measurabl, the world’s most widely adopted sustainability software for real estate.
The integration automatically syncs BREEAM’s GreenBookLive – a registry of BREEAM certifications – with Measurabl’s platform to improve the accuracy of sustainability reporting to protocols like GRESB and CDP and simplify the tracking and maintaining of sustainability certifications for building owners and operators. The integration is available at no cost to buildings worldwide registered with Measurabl and certified with BREEAM.
“Integrating with Measurabl is a significant milestone in our tech-forward approach to building sustainability certification,” said Barry Giles, CEO of BRE America. “Our joint clients can benefit from seamless data sharing, making it easier than ever to implement sustainable practices by keeping all the data in one place. We’re excited our clients will be able to focus on improving building performance rather than keeping track of data.”
BREEAM was developed in 1990 by BRE, a world leading, multi-disciplinary building science organization, and today has more certifications than any other green rating system with over 2,250,000 registered projects and over 550,000 certified buildings worldwide across more than 70 countries. Based on scientific research funded by BRE, the BREEAM In-Use standard is available to every commercial existing building no matter the size, age or condition.
“Real estate owners depend on accurate and timely data to confirm and communicate to investors, lenders and occupiers the ROI from improved performance through operational efficiencies and increased market value that BREEAM certified buildings offer,” said Gary Thomas, Senior Director, Global Energy & Sustainability at CBRE. “BREEAM’s leadership on green building certification and Measurabl’s innovative sustainability software will make it easier to leverage sustainability and deliver superior financial performance to owners around the world.”
The BREEAM-Measurabl integration was timed for release just as many companies are compiling their annual investor disclosures on sustainability. Most real estate companies must issue multiple reports – both internal and public facing – in various formats so capturing and mapping the data to different standards compounds the time investment and risk of inaccuracies. With more than 5 billion square feet of commercial real estate across 67 countries using Measurabl, vast time savings and accuracy improvements have been created.
“BREEAM certification is one of the most prestigious hallmarks of a sustainable building, and has been widely adopted in Europe, but tracking and reporting certification status across large real estate portfolios is tedious and prone to manual error,” said Matt Ellis, Measurabl’s Founder and CEO. “Through this partnership, we have made it easier and more accurate for multinational portfolios to measure, manage, act upon, and promote the successes they’ve achieved through excellent ESG performance.”
About BRE America & BREEAM USA
BRE America is partnership between BRE Group, the world’s leading authority on all aspects of the built environment, and BuildingWise. BREEAM USA was established to provide a sustainability certification and improvement solution to the 5.6 million existing buildings in the United States not covered by existing green building programs. For more information, please visit www.breeamusa.com
About Measurabl
Measurabl is the world’s most widely adopted sustainability software for the built environment. More than 5 billion square feet of commercial property valued in excess of USD $1 trillion spread across 67 countries use our software to manage, benchmark, and report sustainability performance. Learn more at www.measurabl.com.
26 Mar 2018
BREEAM API News
GRESB integrates new BREEAM API to enhance green building certification reporting
GRESB and BRE have collaborated to integrate a BREEAM API with the GRESB Portal for the 2018 reporting cycle.
The link unlocks the capability to locate, select and match valid BREEAM certificate entries to specific assets within a GRESB portfolio and help to improve the speed and accuracy of reporting for clients.
GRESB participants can already link building certifications via the ‘Certification’ tab within the Asset Portal. However, the addition of the BREEAM certification dataset via the newly introduced API provides another layer of transparency and efficiency to GRESB reporting.
The new functionality will be live for the 2018 GRESB reporting period and is the first step in connecting GRESB to a BREEAM certification dataset in this way. Further functionality will be added over time as the two organisations continue to build stronger linkages.
“The integration of the BREEAM API marks an important milestone for the industry as it enables seamless and assured reporting of BRE certifications to GRESB. It also represents another step forward in our ambitions to reduce the reporting burden for our respondents” said Sander Paul van Tongeren, Co-founder and Managing Director at GRESB.
James Fisher, Existing Buildings Lead for BREEAM, said “The API demonstrates the strong synergy between GRESB as a portfolio-based reporting tool and BREEAM as a more granular asset-based reporting and certification methodology. BREEAM and GRESB’s long-term aim is to increase the speed and efficiency of data reporting and provide clients with an effective means of identifying and improving sustainability performance over time.”
GRESB is an industry-driven organization transforming the way capital markets assess the environmental, social and governance (ESG) performance of real asset investments. In 2017 850 property companies and funds, jointly representing more than USD 3.7 trillion in assets under management, participated in the GRESB Real Estate Assessment. GRESB data and analytical tools are used by 70 institutional investors, including pension funds and insurance companies, collectively representing over USD 17 trillion in institutional capital, to engage with investment managers to enhance and protect shareholder value. Learn more at GRESB.com.
www.gresb.com
14 Feb 2018
BRE BIM Business certification
360°ethos brings One Creative a BRE BIM Business certification
Award-winning building designer practice One Creative Environments Ltd. (One) has been awarded BRE Global BIM Level 2 Business Systems Certification.
One is an integrated multidisciplinary building design business working in masterplanning, architecture, landscape architecture, civil and structural engineering and building services both in the UK and abroad. Spanning a wide range of sectors, their clients include NHS, Toyota, Network Rail, Hilton, and more.
One was the recent recipient of a RICS West Midlands Award for its work on the Birmingham Dental Hospital and School of Dentistry and is an early adopter of technology with the company’s first Building Information Modelling (BIM) project being undertaken back in 2012.
Dan Rossiter, Senior BIM Communicator at BRE said: “Even from the initial review of their documentation, it was clear that One Creative Environments practice had put a considerable amount of effort into developing a BIM-enabled process that works for them. Utilising their in-house BIM knowledge and their industry experience, One has achieved a unified process which demonstrates how BIM can support a successful practice without having to compromise on their culture or identity. True 360° thinking.”
Jason Whittall, Director and Head of BIM at One Creative Environments Ltd. said: “Having independent certification from BRE Global provides our clients with the assurance that the highest available standards are provided on all project commissions where BIM deliverables are required, and that our multi-disciplinary team has the skills and resources to give them the best possible advice on all aspects of BIM delivery.”
9 Feb 2018
BREEAM Infrastructure Certificate News
HS2 awarded first BREEAM Infrastructure certificate
Friday 9th February 2018 – HS2 has become the UK’s first infrastructure project to be awarded a BREEAM Infrastructure (pilot) Scheme Certificate for its ambitious sustainability strategy on Phase 1 of the project.
The assessment demonstrates that HS2 is committed to going beyond enhancement and protection of the environment, to address the key social and economic impacts of the development. It includes features such as working in harmony with communities, being a great neighbour, putting safety and wellbeing at the heart of the project, and building sustainable economic benefits for the whole of the UK, such as better skills and career opportunities for a new generation.
image courtesy of architects
HS2 Environment Director, Peter Miller, said, ‘We are very pleased to receive this BREEAM Infrastructure certificate. Our goal with HS2 is to design and build the most sustainable high-speed railway of its kind in the world, working in partnership with our supply chain and local communities to leave a positive legacy for future infrastructure projects both in the UK and beyond. This certificate is a testament to our sustainability commitments and to the lasting benefits of the HS2 project.”
BREEAM Infrastructure* is part of the international BREEAM family of sustainability standards for buildings and infrastructure. Later this year the best of BREEAM Infrastructure will be brought together with market leading sustainable infrastructure scheme CEEQUAL* to provide a new world class international scheme for the future called CEEQUAL (2018). The CEEQUAL (2018) development process includes significant valuable feedback and learning from the application of the BREEAM Infrastructure pilot to HS2.
BRE Director of Infrastructure Chris Broadbent said ‘From 2014 HS2 was the first project to engage with BRE in the development of BREEAM Infrastructure working with us to pioneer a new approach to a sustainability strategy which applies right across the entire HS2 project. This is a first for the UK and it will set the standards for future infrastructure projects around the world’
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Building Research Establishment News
BRE Global
BRE Global’s BIM Level 2 Business Systems Certification scheme assesses a business in relation to its BIM capability and policy as outlined in the PAS 1192-2:2013 and PAS 91 standards. It also considers the ability of the business to meet the requirements of an employer to implement BIM on a project. bregroup.com
United Kingdom, BRE, Bucknalls Lane, Watford, Hertfordshire, WD25 9XX
BRE Global Awards Jacobs BIM Level 2 Business Systems Certification information received 140817
19 Jul 2017
BRE Partnership for Sustainable Construction in Russia
BREEAM In-Use certified Metropolis building in Moscow:
photo courtesy of architects
BRE Partnership for Sustainable Construction in Russia
Sustainable Architecture
7 + 5 Jul 2017
Biophilic Office Project at BRE, Watford, southeast England
image Courtesy of BRE
Biophilic Office Project at BRE
Zero-carbon House, BRE site, Watford, southeast England
Design: Sheppard Robson with Arup
images from architects
Zero-Carbon BRE House
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