Pictured above: Adrian Aston

A new Green Rating that allows owners to compare properties' sustainability across Europe has been launched by a group of property companies frustrated by the limitations of the BREEAM ratings used here in the UK.

Adrian Aston a director at property and construction consultants Wakemans says that this new scheme is to be welcomed and that other initiatives are needed if BREEAM is to succeed.

Many professionals involved in property believe that there is a need to produce more environmentally friendly buildings and the evidence so far from the global investment market is that financially, green office buildings perform better and attract higher yields. But the BREEAM system has many shortcomings in its operation, does not give a true measure of how a building performs during its life and does not support the use of new renewable and sustainable forms of energy.

The Government wants to increase the use of alternative forms of energy but the BREEAM system does not go far enough to support this. It is often very difficult to provide all of the energy required from a new renewable source and the limits of new technology means that most commercial schemes still need to rely on traditional energy sources to supplement the alternatives.  In addition it is also often difficult to utilise some alternatives because of factors such as local opposition to wind farms for example.  

The problem is that it is just all too prescriptive. The points based system makes no allowance for local conditions, the size or the location of the site. Small rural sites in particular suffer and find it difficult to gain points even when the material choices, design and energy sources are all very green. For example transport links is one area that gains points and it is just not possible to achieve this in rural areas. 

Brownfield or contaminated sites also score highly and rural locations will tend to be greenfield sites, meaning that this opportunity is also lost.

Sites that are not able to preserve some special grasses, scrubland or create some form of "ecologically valuable habitat" will not be able to gain valuable points and it is harder to get them further down the line when design has been developed and it is realised that more points are needed to get to the required level.

Cost of technology is another factor. The cost is the same to investigate if new technologies are suitable and to prepare reports for both large and small projects. The technology cost themselves can be prohibitive as many new technologies have been developed on a commercial scale and is hard to find low cost smaller alternatives.

In the UK, how far developers go with BREEAM ratings can be a regional lottery dictated by the planners. Some Local Authorities demand a much higher rating than others and will withhold planning permission for schemes that fail to reach its self imposed level. Planners are not  experts in new technologies or sustainable building and it should not be their job to dictate what levels are required.

There are several ways that the present system could be improved with starting again. BREEAM could be more effective if assessors where given some flexibility to make judgements and not just follow the defined criteria. A classification system could also be introduced for buildings within size bands or geographical locations. 

More could be done to try and link into how the building will be used once it is constructed in a meaningful manner. At the moment you can gain points for providing facilities such as showers for people to cycle to work but without an integrated transport system that provides suitable cycle paths this is not going to make a difference.

One of the proposed benefits of the Green Rating system that is being implemented on 50 pilot projects in France, Germany and the UK is that it will be more useful for property owners because it gives hard data on energy use, carbon, water, waste, health and transport. It is also hoped that investors will benefit because they will be able to compare environmental performance between the different countries.   

Around 120 buildings are due to be audited in Europe during 2009 under the new Green Rating system. It would be of real benefit to look closely at their results and see if any improvements to BREEAM can be implemented.