Sustainability aims

Establish the client’s Sustainability Aspirations so that these can be properly taken into account in developing the Strategic Brief and Business Case.

Checkpoints

• • Ensure that a strategic sustainability review of client needs and potential sites has been carried out, including reuse of existing facilities, building components or materials.

Supplementary notes

• • This ‘awareness’ stage sets the sustainability context for the project.
• • Review client requirements to distil their Sustainability Aspirations and the expected building lifespan against which capital costs and costs in use should be balanced.
• • The client should consider appointing or identifying a client sustainability advocate (in a senior management position) and/or appointing a sustainability champion within the project team.
• • Assess environmental opportunities and constraints of potential sites and building assets, including sufficient iterative modelling to support the conclusions of any Feasibility Studies.
• • Initial consultation with stakeholders, identification of local planning sustainability requirements and appraisal of existing building, social, transportation, water, energy, ecological and renewable resources, including the need for pre-construction or seasonal monitoring or surveys, should be undertaken.
• • Identify potential funding sources and their eligibility criteria.
• • Review relevant current and emerging EU, national and local sustainability policies and legislation and analyse their implications for building, environmental and performance targets.
• • Identify and understand the final occupants’ needs in order to help to establish user patterns, energy profiles and the performance standards required.
• • Obtain a letter from the planning authority to verify any sustainability requirements.

Sustainability aims

During Stage 1, the Sustainability Aspirations should be considered and included in the Initial Project Brief, defining criteria to be met as appropriate. A budget, procurement route and design process should be established that will promote the realisation of those aspirations and a project team with the required resources, skills and commitment assembled.

Checkpoints

• • Confirm that formal sustainability targets are stated in the Initial Project Brief.
• • Confirm that environmental requirements, building lifespan and future climate parameters are stated in the Initial Project Brief.
• • Have early stage consultations, surveys or monitoring been undertaken as necessary to meet sustainability criteria or assessment procedures?
• • Check that the principles of the Handover Strategy and post-completion services are included in each party’s Schedule of Services.
• • Confirm that the Site Waste Management Plan has been implemented.

Supplementary notes

• • Commission surveys of existing buildings to be retained (including condition, historic/townscape significance, materials and components for recycling), services, noise, vibration, renewable energy resources, ecology, geology, etc. as required to inform the brief.
• • Review options for formal assessment of aspects of sustainability and/or energy performance (e.g. BREEAM, LEED, Passivhaus). If the project is a component of a larger scheme, ensure that targets support and are consistent with any overarching sustainability assessment methodologies. Establish a timetable for associated assessor appointment and early stage actions.
• • Include a simple description in the Initial Project Brief of the internal environmental conditions that the client requires.
• • Involve the client’s facilities management team and review past experience (both good and bad) in a spirit of openness in order to set environmental and performance targets or Project Outcomes that are useful, measurable and challenging but achievable and unambiguous. Energy use and carbon emissions targets should include both regulated and unregulated use.
• • Agree how to measure performance in use, what incentives there will be to achieve Project Outcomes and what action is appropriate if anything falls short.
• • Develop potential energy strategies, including estimated energy demand calculations, options for renewables and implications for building or site design (e.g. whether there is sufficient plant space).
• • Develop water efficiency strategies to establish similarly robust performance targets.
• • Set out sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) and surface water retention requirements.
• • Develop a brief for specialist environmental sub-consultants (e.g. wind monitoring consultants, ecologists).
• • Consider climate change adaptation criteria and future performance standards.
• • Set out any future uses or reconfiguration to be accommodated.
• • Ensure that the competence of potential design team members matches the client’s Sustainability Aspirations.
• • Client to implement the Site Waste Management Plan to enable designers to record decisions made to reduce waste as the project progresses.

Sustainability aims

To develop a Concept Design that embodies the underpinning Sustainability Aspirations of the project with sufficient detail and analysis to be confident that key strategies can be delivered in practice.

Checkpoints

• • Confirm that formal sustainability pre-assessment and identification of key areas of design focus have been undertaken and that any deviation from the Sustainability Aspirations has been reported and agreed.
• • Has the initial Building Regulations Part L assessment been carried out?
• • Have ‘plain English’ descriptions of internal environmental conditions and seasonal control strategies and systems been prepared?
• • Has the environmental impact of key materials and the Construction Strategy been checked?
• • Has resilience to future changes in climate been considered?

Supplementary notes

• • Set out the site-scale environmental design criteria (e.g. solar orientation, overshadowing, SuDS, waste).
• • Consider the design of the space between buildings as well as the buildings themselves.
• • Consider the need for and scale of private, semi-private and public external space.
• • Establish maximum plan depths to achieve desired levels of natural ventilation, daylight and view.
• • Design for buildability, usability and manageability.
• • Consider the impact of complexity of form on thermal performance, airtightness and inefficient or wasteful use of materials.
• • Establish an appropriate glazing proportion and shading strategy for each orientation to provide good levels of daylight while avoiding excessive glare, solar gain or heat loss.
• • Establish appropriate element thicknesses to achieve the U-values required by the energy strategy.
• • Check that materials and the construction approach will provide a level of thermal mass that is appropriate to the environmental design strategy.
• • Refine and review design decisions to minimise the quantity of materials used and to minimise construction waste (for guidance, see www.wrap.org.uk/designingoutwaste).
• • Review the embodied impacts of the materials and the construction approach in the context of the building’s lifespan.
• • Avoid design solutions that inhibit adaptation and alternative use of the building or its components and materials.
• • Take particular care to avoid short- and long-term damage to retained traditional building fabric from ill-considered upgrade interventions.
• • Ensure that the design implications of any components, essential to the success of the Sustainability Strategy (e.g. space for fuel deliveries and waste handling, roof collector area and orientation, location and size of rainwater harvesting tanks, SuDS attenuation, etc.) are understood by all members of the project team.
• • Refine the energy and servicing strategy, incorporating energy-efficient services design and design techniques.
• • Carry out sufficient compliance or advanced modelling to prove the design concept before freezing the design (e.g. SBEM/SAP/PHPP (Passivhaus Planning Package) or dynamic modelling).
• • Audit the emerging design against the project’s Sustainability Strategy and Project Outcomes.
• • Set up a programme of intermediate evaluations and reality checks involving stakeholders and key users as well as the design team.

Sustainability aims

To ensure that the Developed Design reflects the underpinning Sustainability Strategy.

Checkpoints

• • Has a full formal sustainability assessment been carried out?
• • Have an interim Building Regulations Part L assessment and a design stage carbon/energy declaration been undertaken?
• • Has the design been reviewed to identify opportunities to reduce resource use and waste and the results recorded in the Site Waste Management Plan?

Supplementary notes

• • Refine and distil the project’s Sustainability Strategy, checking against brief and targets.
• • Update energy modelling as the design develops and check against targets.
• • Refine the climate adaptation strategy and make provision for future adaptation interventions.
• • Incorporate environmental and sustainability issues in the Planning Application Design and Access Statement, including a development of the Stage 2 ‘plain English’ description of internal environmental conditions, seasonal control strategy and systems. Provide a supplementary detailed report if appropriate.
• • Consider peer reviews of environmental control strategies and also involve stakeholders and users.
• • Instigate initial involvement of and advice to contractors and specialist subcontractors where specialist products or systems are proposed.
• • Audit the Developed Design to ensure integration and compliance with the project’s sustainability targets.

Sustainability aims

To ensure that the final design work prepared by the design team and the follow-on design work by specialist subcontractors reflects the technical requirements of the underpinning Sustainability Strategy.

Checkpoints

• • Is the formal sustainability assessment substantially complete?
• • Have details been audited for airtightness and continuity of insulation?
• • Has the Building Regulations Part L submission been made and the design stage carbon/energy declaration been updated and the future climate impact assessment prepared?
• • Has a non-technical user guide been drafted and have the format and content of the Part L log book been agreed?
• • Has all outstanding design stage sustainability assessment information been submitted?
• • Are building Handover Strategy and monitoring technologies specified?
• • Have the implications of changes to the specification or design been reviewed against agreed sustainability criteria?
• • Has compliance of agreed sustainability criteria for contributions by specialist subcontractors been demonstrated?

Supplementary notes

• • Agree technical requirements to support the monitoring strategy.
• • Ensure that artificial lighting and daylighting strategies and controls are mutually supportive in delivering low energy consumption.
• • Involve facilities management and users in reviewing the environmental control systems and manual and automatic controls to ensure that they are appropriately simple and intuitive, and that there is a match between expectations and the design.
• • Make sure that the project team is aware of the technical consequences of strategic sustainability decisions.
• • Specify sustainable materials and products, balancing life-cycle assessment, maintenance regime, durability and cost.
• • Complete consultation with subcontractors and suppliers with regard to Technical Design issues and review information packages to check that they are coordinated, complementary and support all components of the Sustainability Strategy.
• • Agree responsibilities and routines for data recording to monitor performance.
• • Review the potential knock-on implications of value engineering on performance and sustainability targets.
• • Review the final details, including subcontractors’ packages, for airtightness and continuity of insulation.
• • Review the information required to demonstrate compliance with sustainability requirements (e.g. materials certification).

Sustainability aims

To ensure that the Sustainability Strategy underpinning the design is carried through into construction and to manage the handover in a way that will ensure that the client can operate the building as intended on occupation.

Checkpoints

• • Has the design stage sustainability assessment been certified?
• • Have sustainability procedures been developed with the contractor and included in the Construction Strategy?
• • Has the detailed commissioning and Handover Strategy programme been reviewed?
• • Confirm that the contractor’s interim testing and monitoring of construction has been reviewed and observed, particularly in relation to airtightness and continuity of insulation.
• • Is the non-technical user guide complete and the aftercare service set up?
• • Has the ‘As-constructed’ Information been issued for post-construction sustainability certification?

Supplementary notes

• • Collaborate with the contractor to maximise construction phase potential to meet sustainability criteria as economically as possible.
• • Submit final information for statutory approval and certification including Building Regulations Part L submission and energy performance certificates (EPC).
• • Visit the site to check that quality, installation, etc. is in line with sustainability targets.
• • Review the content of the operating and maintenance manual with the facilities manager, who should sign it off when it is complete and acceptable. Stress the importance of design elements that are essential to meeting sustainability targets and how to monitor whether they are operating correctly.
• • Work with the client’s facilities managers to ensure a smooth handover, with all records finalised and coordinated and with adequately trained operating and maintenance staff in place in advance of completion.
• • Check that adequate maintenance contracts are in place and that they will commence immediately after handover.
• • Confirm responsibilities and routines for data recording to monitor performance and assist in fine tuning.
• • Identify aftercare representative(s) and when they will be available on site.
• • Refer to the Handover Strategy for detailed guidance on preparations to be made for handover and post-completion activities.

Sustainability aims

To support the client in the early stages of occupation and to provide aftercare services as agreed.

Checkpoints

• • Has assistance with the collation of post-completion information for final sustainability certification been provided?

Supplementary notes

• • If necessary, review the project sustainability features and operation methods with the client, facilities managers and occupants.
• • Assist with the fine tuning of building services and operational systems to check that they meet user requirements.

Sustainability aims

To provide any services relevant to the operation or use of the building as agreed.

Checkpoints

• • Has observation of the building operation in use and assistance with fine tuning and guidance for occupants been undertaken?
• • Has the energy/carbon performance been declared?

Supplementary notes

• • Review controls and performance in each season and update manuals and records to reflect any change.
• • Feedback lessons learned from the post-occupancy review to the client and project team.