Sustainability Benchmarking and Environmental Assessments
Sustainability credentials for buildings have never been so important. It makes achieving internationally recognised benchmarks highly significant for commercial and social value.
Stepping-up your sustainability journey matters to all your stakeholders. Customers, employees, communities, and investors will all form an opinion of your business through the real estate you develop, invest in, or occupy.
By securing the highest of sustainable credentials, you can maximise rental income, increase asset value, attract the best occupiers and offer investors a strong ESG narrative that supports your future funding streams.
We will help you achieve the best outcomes by creating toolkits that benchmark, measure and improve carbon and broader sustainability performance. These are founded on established international frameworks such as the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Our advice ranges from strategic masterplan sites that promote multi-faceted BREEAM / WELL communities, and Building with Nature, through to individually targeted opportunities using more detailed studies such as Passivhaus.
We are familiar with leading national and international benchmarking assessments such as BREEAM, CEEQUAL, LEED, WELL, DREAM, CfSH, HQM, WiredScore, GRESB, CRREM, Passivhaus and NABERS UK.
We work collaboratively within project teams to provide clear guidance and robust strategies which ensure targets are embedded and delivered.
Assessments cover a broad range of areas, including:
- Management
- Health and wellbeing
- Energy
- Transport
- Water
- Materials and waste
- Land use and ecology
- Pollution
Carbon verification – your assurance on GHG claims
How do you ensure your efforts to decarbonise are meaningful? Carbon verification checks, tests and proves claims are what they say they are.
Our track record
Our track record includes:
- Home Group headquarters, Newcastle: We have delivered detailed services design to RIBA Stage 3 and the BREEAM assessment for the new six-storey headquarters building for leading housing association, Home Group. The design philosophy is enabling Home Group to target a BREEAM Excellent rating, an EPC A rating and a Platinum WiredScore certification for best-in- class digital infrastructure.
- Designing for Passivhaus on a private rental and affordable housing programme in Cornwall: We are supporting Cornish based property developer, Treveth with a programme to develop housing across the county for the local community that delivers net-zero, whole life carbon emissions, and enables the residents to live a low carbon lifestyle. The housing designs are benchmarked against the 2030 Climate Challenge set by RIBA, embrace Passivhaus standards and the scheme as a LETI pioneer project.
- Sustainability strategy for masterplan development, South Coast: Our sustainability benchmarking toolkit is helping shape a new masterplan development that will result in significant investment in an existing village on the south coast. In an area that includes protected heathland, the approach looks at delivering energy and climate resilience, a sustainability framework and a design code.
- Yorkshire Event Centre, Harrogate: We advised the Event Centre on their BREEAM assessment, in addition to our M&E design, for a new £11m flexible event centre. Our team’s expertise focused on energy, waste and materials. Notable achievements including highly modulated plant to allow optimum control for differing modes of operation, a PV array on the south-facing roof and toilet doors and vanity units made from recycled plastic bottles.
