INFORMATION PROVIDED

The sustainable design and construction measures contained in this database have been selected as they would be applicable to most sites and represent an improvement over standard practice. They were drawn from best practice guidance sources, including BREEAM and Ecohomes assessment schemes.

The information provided on each measure includes:

• A brief description
• An indication of cost
• An explanation of the benefits that result from the implementation of the measure as applied to:
• Local authorities
• Global environment
• Occupiers (of the building)
• Developers.
• Notes on issues relating to the implementation of the measure.

Each measure has also been categorised under the five headings below.

DEFINITIONS OF CATEGORIES

When should you fit the measure?

• Fit as standard: Measures that should be promoted as standard practice and implemented on almost all developments (subject to detail design considerations in very few specific situations). These measures exceed minimum requirements but are judged in this study to deliver important benefits without incurring excessive cost on a measure-by-measure basis. Opinions on what additional cost is acceptable will vary.
• Exemplar: Measures that should be technically feasible on almost all developments but where significant cost, practice, market or other barriers currently exist. Due to such barriers, these measures are likely to be implemented on a smaller proportion of developments or a subset of buildings within a development.  Not all measures will be implemented on any given development and the inclusion of some measure may preclude others.
• Low priority: Measures that are technically feasible but are not considered sufficiently beneficial to be promoted as standard on every development.  They could be considered as ‘nice to have’ but are not high priority.

Is the measure site specific?

• Applicable on all sites: Measures that can be fitted to a building regardless of location or type of site.
• Review on a site by site basis: Measures that are not suitable for all sites, either because of the type of land, or because of the type or mix of buildings to be erected.

How much does it cost?

In order to provide costs for each measure, a number of generic development scenarios were established to reflect the range of development currently being undertaken and proposed through the Government’s Communities Plan. For each scenario a base case scheme was established to represent a development built to the minimum requirements of Building Regulations and which assumes the use of construction methods typical of those in use at the present time. 

For each base case scheme a quantity surveyor provided a typical overall cost for the development and then determined the additional costs that would be incurred for each of the improvement measures on the list.  For further information on the costing methodology, see What measures? section.

The following groupings have been used to categorise (approximately) measures as low, medium or high cost:

Low cost: Less than or equal to £100 / measure / unit

Medium cost: Greater than £100 and less than £750 / measure / unit

High cost: Equal to or greater than £750 / measure / unit

How easy is it to implement the measure?

Each measure has been assessed on its ease of implementation on the site, in relation to standard construction practice and techniques.

Easy to implement: Can be included on a development without the need for additional skills or specialist installers (e.g. low energy lighting).

Achievable to implement: Likely to require additional skills or specialist techniques for first time of implementation at least (e.g. solar water heating)

Difficult to implement: Likely to require a specialist contractor (e.g. district heating), planning permission (e.g. wind turbines), alterations to the standard programme of works (e.g. laying ground source heat pump pipes) etc.

Can you get credits under Ecohomes assessment schemes?

CATEGORIES

Click on a measure to find out more about it (as detailed above).
Pdfs of all the measures can be downloaded from the bottom of the page.

	Domestic	Generic	Commercial & Industrial
General	EcoHomes	Considerate Contractors Scheme	BREEAM
Energy	Energy efficient lighting	Ground sourced heat pumps	Energy efficient lighting
	Energy efficient external lighting and controls	Photovoltaics	Energy efficient external lighting and controls – BMS/PIR
	Improved building fabric	Solar water heating	Improved building fabric
	Condensing boilers	On site wind power	Condensing boilers
	Community heating schemes (with combined heat and power systems)		Community heating schemes (with CHP).
	Air tightness		Air tightness
	Passive stack ventilation		Zoned heating controls
	Whole house mechanical ventilation systems with heat recovery		Minimising air conditioning – natural ventilation of office areas
	Energy efficient domestic appliances		Energy Sub Metering
Transport	Cycle storage	Access to public transport/car use	Cycle storage and cyclist facilities
	Car clubs		Travel plan
Materials & Waste	Recycling storage	Certified sustainable timber	Reclaimed construction materials
		Sustainable materials specification	Recycling facilities
Water	Water efficient appliances	Sustainable Urban Drainage System
	Grey water and rainwater recycling
Bio-diversity		Ecological enhancement and conservation	Green roof
Health & Wellbeing			Good daylighting
	Download a PDF of all the Domestic Measures	Download a PDF of all the Generic Measures	Download a PDF of all the Commercial & Industrial Measures