Mainer Associates are proud to assist our clients in achieving Design Stage certifications for BREEAM Outstanding – the highest rating a building can achieve within a BREEAM Assessment. We help our clients to consistently realise their targets; in this article, therefore, we present three projects whereby our involvement has helped our clients’ aspirations to become a reality.

Written by

Dan Coupland and Dan Skelton

Graduate Sustainability Consultants

To contact please email:

dan.coupland@mainer.co.uk or dan.skelton@mainer.co.uk

Why Outstanding?

When considering a building’s design and performance, BREEAM Outstanding represents the very best buildings within the built environment. In essence, buildings that are specified to this rating are ensured as having the best quality – and the most sustainable – building materials and practises used within their construction. This, consequently, produces buildings which are highly energy efficient.

Outstanding, as denoted by the Building Research Establishment (BRE), concerns less than the top 1% of UK new non-domestic buildings. These buildings are classed as “innovators” and demonstrate what all new buildings should strive to be like. By gaining a rating of Outstanding, a building can ensure that it stands out from the crowd – which makes it important to clients who specify this rating from a project’s outset.

The Value in Outstanding Projects

11 & 12 Wellington Place, Leeds represents the most energy efficient building in Yorkshire. The project is the first in a series of developments for the Wellington Place Scheme, which is set to revolutionise sustainable construction. Mainer Associates are delighted, therefore, to have been at the forefront of this ambitious project.

Mainer Associates has recently submitted the Post-Construction Stage Assessment to the BRE for formal accreditation, which will enable the building to be classed as BREEAM Outstanding. The site on which 11 & 12 Wellington Place is situated, however, represented a significant challenge due to its location and its proximity to listed buildings.

So, how did Mainer Associates help?

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, which had severely disrupted the project but highlighted the necessity for highly sustainable buildings, client MEPC was keen to satisfy this increasing market demand. To accomplish this, a more onerous BREEAM Outstanding rating was therefore suggested and targeted. Though this represented a challenge, Mainer Associates’ wealth of experience meant that we were more than ready to help.

We began to work towards this rating through initiating team discussions, which allowed a set of credits to be identified upon which the desired rating could be achieved. This analysis of potential credits considered the previously discussed site-specific difficulties of the city centre location. Meanwhile, Mainer Associates provided an Accredited Professional (AP) to work on the project, who supported and guided decision-making for elements such as material procurement. We additionally undertook similar sustainability services for the project, including the Whole Life Carbon Assessment.

As the lead Sustainability Consultancy for several sustainability services at 11 & 12 Wellington Place, this allowed key decisions to be completed in the early stages of the project’s development, but also throughout the project where necessary. Subsequently, MEPC’s request for BREEAM Outstanding was honoured and the sustainability of the asset was not compromised.

The Eden at New Bailey, Salford, is a new commercial office building being delivered by clients Bowmer + Kirkland (B+K). The project – which will feature the largest living wall in Europe – involved Mainer Associates delivering the Embodied Carbon Analysis, in addition to undertaking the BREEAM Assessment – which, again, targeted a certification of Outstanding.

For this project, we supported B+K during the development of their tender, which involved responding to embodied carbon targets – and reduction opportunities – as recommended within the tender documentation. To do this, we aided with a key carbon reduction opportunity alongside B+K through engaging with their supply chain to use a reclaimed access flooring system (rather than a newly manufactured system). This successfully removed most emissions associated with the A1–A3 Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) stages (raw material supply, transport, and manufacturing) when compared to a typical system.

In this instance, our significant experience working on similar projects of a similar size and function allowed us to provide expert advice, thus limiting the building’s life cycle of CO2. Through the reuse of this access flooring system, a substantial saving was made in terms of the materials used; this, consequently, yielded positive results when deducing credits for the BREEAM Assessment.

As Mainer Associates were responsible for undertaking both the LCA and BREEAM Assessment, this similarly allowed us to be in a unique position, whereby we could easily provide diligent solutions to benefit the building’s overall sustainability.

NOMA, 4 Angel Square, Manchester, is the first operationally net zero building to come to market. Located in Manchester’s city centre, the development is set to revolutionise best practice for large-scale commercial buildings not only in the North, but also nationally. Mainer Associates are currently working on the Post Construction Stage for the BREEAM Assessment alongside our clients, MEPC and B&K, with the aim of delivering the finished asset in late 2023.

For the project, we were appointed to undertake a plethora of services, including: BREEAM, Fitwel, Whole Life Carbon Assessment, Life Cycle Costing (LCC) and Carbon Centric Dash. In keeping with the design philosophy of net zero, the development is also targeting BREEAM Outstanding, and we are well placed to achieve this.

Our key role on this project has been to facilitate the ambitious sustainability targets into the BREEAM Assessment and related deliverables. Due to the development’s location in Manchester, we have routinely attended site visits throughout the design and construction phases, helping the team to achieve the BREEAM target and requirements. As well as this, we have attended and chaired workshops with all the different disciplines which make up the project team, to streamline individual works undertaken.

The net-zero aspect of NOMA, 4 Angel Square, is perhaps the most challenging aspect of the build. However, through Mainer Associates’ LCA work, we were able to specify and alter the design of the building materials used (which contribute to the net-zero target), as well as ensuring that this was compliant for BREEAM Outstanding requirements.

How can Mainer Associates help you with BREEAM?

As demonstrated by these short case studies, Mainer Associates are well placed to help any client achieve a BREEAM Outstanding building. We understand the challenges that come with this, and we have processes in place in order to ensure a smooth assessment and successful Outstanding accreditation.

If you would like to enquire further, please feel free to get in touch or contact us via the following email: hello@mainer.co.uk

For more information about BREEAM, please see our service page