- BREEAM Logo
In a move towards greater cooperation, the US Green Building Council has announced that the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Program would in future recognise BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) energy credits.
At a LEED International Roundtable meeting held in Paris earlier in March 2012, a ‘pivotal’ decision was made to extend the recognition, beginning with LEED’s new construction version and BREEAM’s most recent international version.
It should be noted that many green building projects around the world pursue dual certification, which brings with it additional costs and time burdens.
At the end of 2011, about 40% of all square footage pursuing LEED certification was outside the United States.
Mutual recognition has been taking place over the last few years, with LEED, BREEAM and Australia’s Green Star group signing a memorandum of understanding focused on developing common metrics to measure carbon emissions.
For readers interested in the subject of the environmental performance of buildings, the BSRIA (Building Services Research and Information Association) has published a comparative analysis of the LEED and BREEAM programmes at http://bit.ly/7s9jUt