BREEAM Communities

BREEAM Communities helps the design team, developers and planners to improve, measure and independently certify the sustainability of developments at the neighbourhood scale or larger.

The ‘Design and Planning’ stage of the scheme aims to influence sustainability at the early stages of project development through community engagement, site strategy and implementation in design. This leads into BREEAM assessments of buildings and homes.

The scheme was originally launched in 2009 and is currently being revised to take account of recent changes to the planning system in the UK and customer feedback. The updated scheme will be published in summer 2012.

BREEAM Communities 2012 will be available for use throughout the UK. For projects outside of the UK, BREEAM are trialling a new Bespoke BREEAM Communities process. Any projects that would like to seek certification against the 2012 manual should contact the BRE Global helpdesk to participate as a pilot in this process at breeam@bre.co.uk.

Existing BREEAM Communities Assessors will need to attend a one-day training session to learn about the changes to the scheme. More information on this course and the three-day training for new assessors will be made available shortly.