Green Guide to Specification
BREEAM is the Building Research Establishment (BRE) Environmental Assessment Method, first launched in the UK in 1990. It sets best practice standards for the environmental performance of buildings through design, specification, construction and operation.
The Green Guide to Specification, also referred to as the Green Guide, is part of BREEAM. It was first published by BRE in 1996 offering a simple guide to the environmental impacts of building materials based on numerical data and including more than 1,500 specifications for six generic types building:
- Commercial
- Educational
- Healthcare
- Retail
- Domestic
- Industrial
Environmental rankings are based on Life Cycle Assessments (LCA), using BRE's Environmental Profiles Methodology. They are arranged on an elemental basis so users can compare materials and components as they compile specifications:
- External walls
- Internal walls and partitions
- Roofs
- Ground floors
- Upper floors
- Windows
- Insulation
- Landscaping
- Floor finishes
Data is set out as an A+ to E ranking system, where A+ represents the best environmental performance and E the worst. A summary of ratings is provided by The Green Guide rating, which is a measure of overall environmental impacts covering:
- Climate change
- Water extraction
- Mineral resource extraction
- Stratospheric ozone depletion
- Human toxicity
- Ecotoxicity to freshwater
- Nuclear waste (higher level)
- Ecotoxicity to land
- Waste disposal
- Fossil fuel depletion
- Eutrophication
- Photochemical ozone creation
- Acidification
This allows specifiers to select items based on their preferences or priorities.
You can find out more about the Green Guide at: https://www.bre.co.uk/greenguide
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings
- BES 6001 Responsible sourcing of construction products.
- BRE articles on Designing Buildings Wiki.
- BRE Buzz articles on Designing Buildings Wiki.
- BREEAM.
- Building Back Better: Circularity and BREEAM.
- Building Research Establishment.
- Cradle to cradle product registry system.
- Ecopoints.
- Environmental profiles.
- Green guide to specification, certified environmental profiles and BREEAM
- Green Seal.
- Is local sourcing always the most sustainable choice?
- Is the desire to reduce the embodied carbon of new buildings damaging the UK steel industry?
- Material resource efficiency in construction: Supporting a circular economy.
- Recyclable construction materials.
- Specification.
- Sustainable materials.
Featured articles and news
HSE simplified advice for installers of stone worktops
After company fined for repeatedly failing to protect workers.
Co-located with 10th year of UK Construction Week.
How orchards can influence planning and development.
Time for knapping, no time for napping
Decorative split stone square patterns in facades.
A practical guide to the use of flint in design and architecture.
Designing for neurodiversity: driving change for the better
Accessible inclusive design translated into reality.
RIBA detailed response to Grenfell Inquiry Phase 2 report
Briefing notes following its initial 4 September response.
Approved Document B: Fire Safety from March
Current and future changes with historical documentation.
A New Year, a new look for BSRIA
As phase 1 of the BSRIA Living Laboratory is completed.
A must-attend event for the architecture industry.
Caroline Gumble to step down as CIOB CEO in 2025
After transformative tenure take on a leadership role within the engineering sector.
RIDDOR and the provisional statistics for 2023 / 2024
Work related deaths; over 50 percent from construction and 50 percent recorded as fall from height.
Solar PV company fined for health and safety failure
Work at height not properly planned and failure to take suitable steps to prevent a fall.
The term value when assessing the viability of developments
Consultation on the compulsory purchase process, compensation reforms and potential removal of hope value.
Trees are part of the history of how places have developed.