BREEAM New Construction: Retail

BREEAM for retail buildings is an assessment method and certification scheme that can be used at the design, construction and refurbishment stages of a building’s lifecycle. Launched in 2004, BREEAM for retail can be used to carry out environmental assessments for most types of retail development, and for a number of different stakeholders, ranging from developers to individual tenants, managing agents and landlords.

The scheme can be used to assess one or a combination of the following types of retail building:

1. General display and sale of goods: general shops and retail units selling non-food goods,
2. Food retail: supermarkets/superstores and other convenience stores i.e. building types which display food or food and non-food goods,
3. Food preparation and service: restaurants, cafes, public houses, bakeries, takeaways i.e. building types where food is prepared on site and served for consumption either on or off site,
4. Service provider: banks, post offices, bookmakers, dry cleaners, travel agencies.

BREEAM for retail can assess the above project types of retail where they combine to form part of a larger retail development e.g. shopping centre/district, department store or retail park.

BREEAM assessments can be carried out on single units or whole developments.

For information on the scope of the BREEAM scheme for retail buildings please refer to the Scheme Document. To download a copy of the Scheme Document or the Pre-Assessment Estimator, go to the Resources section of this website.

For examples of buildings that have been assessed against the BREEAM Retail scheme criteria, please  follow the links below or visit the Case Studies section of this website.

BREEAM New Construction is not appropriate for assessing the environmental impact of existing buildings in use. For information on the assessment of existing buildings please go to the BREEAM In-Use scheme page using the ‘Schemes’ link at the top of this page. If you want to know more about using BREEAM to assess the environmental impact of an existing building refurbishment of fit-out please go to the BREEAM Refurbishment scheme page using the ‘Schemes’ link at the top of this page.