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A newly built pallet warehouse at Severnside near Bristol has become the first building awarded certification to BREEAM New Construction 2011, proving that it is not always glamorous city-centre developments that achieve milestone BREEAM results.
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A BREEAM rating was sought by the new building’s tenant, pallet and container pooling services provider CHEP UK Ltd, as part of the company’s sustainability and marketing initiatives. BREEAM 2011 is the latest version of the extensively used scheme for assessing the sustainability of buildings.
‘A wide range of buildings have been registered to BREEAM 2011 and many are now being assessed,’ commented Carol Atkinson, Chief Executive of BRE Global. ‘Congratulations to the project team involved in the design and construction of the warehouse, which is the first building to complete the BREEAM 2011 certification process and has achieved a “Very Good” rating.’
Designed by RPS Planning & Development and owned by Portland Estates Ltd, the new warehouse occupies the first plot to be developed on the 640-acre, Central Park warehouse and distribution estate. ‘This was our first BREEAM 2011 assessment,’ says Tim Reeve of Winvic Construction, who built the structure, ‘but the BREEAM assessor made us feel very comfortable with his knowledge and expertise. The tenant is very impressed that this development is the first to achieve the BREEAM 2011 certification, and I feel that a lot of this success was down to how the design team, contractor and BREEAM assessor performed as a collective.’
This eight-acre development comprises large external pallet storage areas and a main warehouse unit with an attached two-storey office building. The primary function of the warehouse is the processing and repair of pallets. Its green features include solar thermal panels located on the south facing roof, which are expected to satisfy at least 40% of the building’s annual hot water demand, a 5000 litre rainwater harvesting system that provides water for all of the building’s WC flushing needs, and a water recycling and filtration system that is used for pressure washing pallets. It ensures that all of the water used is filtered and reused.
Also installed is building energy metering that monitors in-use energy consumption, raises occupant awareness and helps to reduce consumption, plus energy efficient lighting and PIR lighting controls, and the use of natural day lighting wherever possible.
BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) is a popular design and assessment method for sustainable buildings, with over 200,000 buildings certified and over a million registered for certification worldwide since it was launched in 1990. Credits are awarded in nine categories according to performance. These credits are then added together to producea single overall score on a scale of Pass, Good, Very Good, Excellent and Outstanding which is also reflected in a star rating from 1 to 5 stars www.breeam.org
BREEAM is regularly updated to ensure that it continues to drive best practice in sustainable design,
construction and operation in the built environment. BREEAM New Construction 2011 replaced the previous version, BREEAM 2008, and the key changes introduced with the new version include:
Setting new benchmarks and assessment methodology for energy efficiency and operational carbon emissions, including benchmarks that encourage the zero carbon hierarchy and reward ‘carbon negative’ buildings, updated benchmarks for construction waste and water consumption, and introduction of new standards on sustainable procurement and post-construction operational aftercare, including monitoring of building performance.
An updated approach to assessing and quantifying service life planning, stakeholder participation, life cycle impacts and recycled aggregates.
New and updated reporting requirements of key performance indicators, including building life cycle CO2 emissions, construction and operational water consumption, construction waste volumes and VOC emissions.
Re-classification and consolidation of issues and criteria to ensure the method continues to deliver in an efficient, cost effective and value added manner, whilst providing a platform for specifying environmental performance targets and quantifying the key building impacts and opportunities at a local, national and global level in line with international work on metrics and assessment frameworks.
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