BREEAM (The Building Research Establishment's Environmental Assessment Method) is the most widely recognized measure of sustainability for construction projects. It allows clients, developers and the supply chain to achieve either PASS, GOOD, VERY GOOD or EXCELLENT ratings for whole buildings. As assessing a whole building is a complex undertaking, the process has, initially, to be broken down into a number of individual elements
Life Cycle Assessment takes into account information in four key areas:
- Resource use (depletion of natural resources)
- Embodied energy (the energy required to produce the material)
- Damage to the environment (pollution etc.)
- Damage to humans (pollution)
It expresses the results as Environment Profiles for individual building products and elements presented as Ecopoint scores.
The Ecopoint scores of these individual products/elements form the basis of the A, B or C Ratings for Building Elements in BRE's Green Guides, which themselves form the basis of the BREEAM ratings.