What Is BREEAM Certification for Real Estate?
Green building is far more than a trend, it's the future of development. Yet even the term green is open to interpretation, which can lead to confusion. Certification programs are one way that developers can ensure their improvements meet standards for sustainability. A certification also adds value to a building that can transfer to the subsequent owners in addition to providing energy savings. Popular certification programs in the United States include LEED and WELL, but there is another program used around the world that is just starting to achieve adoption here in the States. BREEAM is actually the most widely used program worldwide with over 2.3 million registered buildings and over 594,000 certifications in 89 countries. It was introduced in the United States five years ago and, so far, 47 buildings here have been certified. BREEAM stands for Building Research Establishments Environmental Assessment Methodology. It was established in 1990, while the Building Research Establishment itself is a 100-year-old institution dedicated to developing standards for the built world. BREEAM is a third-party assessment. That means an impartial licensed expert assessor reviews the project to make sure it meets the appropriate standards. The assessor tours the building and also reviews all of the materials related to the construction and improvements of the building. The BREEAM assessment covers a wide variety of sustainability metrics. Millionacres interviewed Breana Wheeler, U.S. Director of Operations at BREEAM. She explained that BREEAM begins with environmental performance, which encompasses energy, water, and waste. BREEAM also makes sure the building provides health and well-being for its occupants. The third component is resilience, protecting the value of the asset for the long term. This can include making sure a building is equipped to face potential climate change. Chasing net-zero carbon  One crucial point of focus for BREEAM is net-zero carbon. As Marc Rapport pointed out in an article on the Urban Land Institute's research in sustainability, net-zero carbonization is becoming the most important standard in green-building maintenance. This is because, according to research from the United Nations, as much as 28% of the world's carbon emissions come from building operations. "In our world, it is simply buildings creating more energy than they use," said Breana Wheeler. "In our program, we focus on on-site renewables. Not because we believe that every building will be able to achieve that balance, but because we are encouraging assets to focus on what they can do with what they have on-site first." Net-zero carbon isn't just about the value of energy savings or even about doing what's best for the planet. There is another crucial concern: the continuing wave of legislation that requires building owners to meet certain energy efficiency standards. As Wheeler put it: "Investors are looking really hard at the lifecycle cost of buildings now. Because particularly with regulation coming in, looking at the longer term, say, I'm buying an asset, that's great now, but in 10 years time, am I going to have an extensive retrofit cost because it's not going to meet regulation, or other aspects looking down the longer term." The Millionacres bottom line  Certification programs have both short- and long-term value. However, there is a cost associated both with obtaining the certification and making the necessary improvements. In some cases, you may be able to access real estate financing, such as C-PACE, to pay for retrofitting or energy efficiency upgrades. Finding the right program for you will depend on a variety of factors, but there's one crucial step no matter what you choose: Start measuring the energy use of your property and considering what improvements you're ready to make in order to reduce costs and improve performance. "We would say with any asset, if you weren't measuring yet, start with the basics," said Wheeler. She went on to elaborate regarding this topic:  Start with your electricity bill, that's always a good one, start on that, start reading your meters on a daily basis. Do the basic groundwork first for data collection. Then start looking into the sensor market. But make sure that it's data that you can actually use for insight. We see a lot of just data in pushing out for reporting, but it's not really helping drive the needle forward. We need to move towards a better outcome.