Work on creating BREEAM began at Building Research Establishment (BRE) (based in Watford, UK) in 1988, and the first version for assessing new office buildings was launched in 1990. This was followed by versions for other buildings including superstores, industrial units and existing offices.
In 1998 there was a major revamp of the BREEAM Offices standard, and the scheme’s layout, with features such as weighting for different sustainability issues, was established. The development of BREEAM then accelerated with annual updates and variations for other building types such as retail premises being introduced.
A version of BREEAM for new homes called EcoHomes was launched in 2000. This scheme was later used as the basis of the Code for Sustainable Homes, which was developed by BRE for the UK Government in 2006/7 and replaced EcoHomes in England and Wales.
An extensive update of all BREEAM schemes in 2008 resulted in the introduction of mandatory post-construction reviews, minimum standards and innovation credits. International versions of BREEAM were also launched that year.
The latest major update in 2011 resulted in the launch of BREEAM New Construction, which is now used to assess and certify all new UK buildings. This revision included the reclassification and consolidation of issues and criteria to further streamline the BREEAM process. The next update of the BREEAM Standard will be launched in 2014.
