Concrete sector questions environmental rating

The Concrete Centre questions the limitation of the Code for Sustainable Homes and the BRE Green Guide concerning high-rise residential buildings.

Although welcoming calls for a holistic environmental rating system that scores each building material/product as part of the whole building performance, The Concrete Centre has questioned the continued limitation of the Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH) and the housing part of the BRE Green Guide to dwellings of only four storeys or lower.

It means that a whole range of multi-storey residential solutions is being ignored.

"BRE Global and the Construction Products Association are concerned that sustainability policies are increasingly becoming a box ticking exercise rather than resulting in the most sustainable overall building solution", said Joanne Turner, Sustainability Manager at The Concrete Centre.

"For this reason, they are calling for an environmental rating system where the scores of each building material are added up to provide a whole building score, rather like for energy performance".

The Concrete Centre believes that whilst this is a would be a welcome improvement to the Code for Sustainable Homes and the BRE Green Guide, it fails to address the fundamental limitation of both environmental rating systems, that of their being only applicable to domestic-scale residential projects up to 4 storeys high.

"The limitation of the Code for Sustainable Homes and the BRE Green Guide concerning high-rise residential buildings over 4 storeys means that a whole range of building solutions are not being covered", explained Turner.

"The development of rating systems towards a more holistic approach that takes full account of a building's operational impact upon the environment provides the opportunity for the CSH and Green Guide to be more comprehensive with regards to residential building types".

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