Phil Clark examines the criticisms levelled by architects at the latest edition of BRE’s Green Guide now online
Much bad feeling seems to be emerging around a recently published guide for specifying sustainable materials. The newly updated BRE Green Guide was released with some fanfare to the market back in June, offering a vital resource to design teams grappling with requirements for the Code for Sustainable Homes and BRE’s own environmental assessment method (Breeam).
The latest version is published online which, apart from saving paper, also allows BRE to update and amend entries. The guide covers 1,300 generic specifications, and also measures the embodied impact of materials and building components for generic building types, using it to assign a single rating, ranging from A+ to E.
So far, so straightforward. However, anything with a green or sustainable moniker is bound to attract controversy, and the Green Guide is no exception. A spat emerged over the ratings given to PVCu windows compared to the timber variety. The former had leapt from a could-do-better C standard in the 1999 version of the guide to a near top-of-the-class A in the new version. Given the origin of plastic — oil — concerns arose over how PVCu had made such a marked improvement.
Anything with a green moniker is bound to attract controversy, and the Green Guide is no exception.
Now I’m told of further ructions bubbling around green circles. These centre on just how critical the document is becoming for design teams. One member of a team on a high-profile project explained to me recently that as the Code for Sustainable Homes becomes mandatory, with teams compelled to make their projects comply with particular code levels, the pressure to achieve credits for your project is ramped up.
But in its current form, the guide is “incomplete”, according to my green mole. Particular techniques and products that his team are using are not covered. Such is the confusion and frustration among some that there has been a call for the guide to be “rethought or redrawn” by the BRE until the anomalies are ironed out. I’m told that a meeting of industry representatives, the BRE and the Department of Communities & Local Government, which owns the Code, will thrash out the issue this month.
I shouldn’t overstate the case against the guide. In the words of another green expert, in 95% of instances, “it’s a really useful tool”. The expert adds: “It’s always going to be controversial”, before reeling off an example of a project he worked on where concrete was considered a “greener alternative” to local slate. The BRE has a tough challenge to balance the need for a meaningful and consistent tool with new evidence and changing methods, products and materials.
Postscript
The BRE’s Green Guide is online at The Green Guide website
Original print headline 'Industry sees red over the latest Green Guide'
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