One of the most effective ways in which we keep pace with best sustainable design practice is through certification. RKD Associate Sean Hogan is a certified BREEAM Accredited Professional. As BREEAM AP Sean provides the design team with expert advice on built environment sustainability, environmental design and environmental assessment. His expert knowledge facilitates the team’s efforts to successfully schedule activities, set priorities and negotiate the trade-offs required to achieve a target BREEAM rating when the design is formally assessed. Sean is also a certified LEED Accredited Professional.
RKD has recently utilised BREEAM certification to pursue ‘Excellent’ and ‘Outstanding’ status on a number of high-profile educational, industrial and technology projects for large multinational clients and 3rd level education institutions.
One of the first practical applications of RKD’s in-house BREEAM expertise was its contribution to Diageo’s Project Phoenix Brewhouse project at St. James’s Gate. The interim BREEAM certificate for the project was achieved towards the end of 2013. The interim cert was put forward for the 2014 BREEAM Awards and achieved the highest score in the Industrial category with 90.96%. The team anticipates an even higher score when final BREEAM certification is achieved post-completion.
BREEAM is the world’s foremost environmental assessment method and rating system for buildings, with 250,000 buildings certified BREEAM assessment ratings and over a million registered for assessment since it was first launched in 1990.
BREEAM sets the standard for best practice in sustainable building design, construction and operation and has become one of the most comprehensive and widely recognised measures of a building’s environmental performance. It encourages designers, clients and others to think about low carbon and low impact design, minimising the energy demands created by a building before considering energy efficiency and low carbon technologies.
Clients, planners, development agencies, funders and developers use BREEAM to specify the sustainability performance of their buildings in a way that is quick, comprehensive and highly visible in the marketplace and provides a level playing field.
Property agents and managers use it to promote the environmental credentials and benefits of a building to potential purchasers and tenants, reduce running costs, measure and improve the performance of buildings and report performance at both single building and portfolio level.
Design teams use it as a method to improve the performance of their buildings and their own experience and knowledge of environmental aspects of sustainability.
BREEAM AP capability complements our existing LEED AP expertise. To learn more about how we have applied this expertise in practice visit our Genzyme Ireland and RDS Offices project pages.
