Updated Assessment Procedure - The Introduction of Compliance Assessment (CA)

Following the Buildings Department (BD)'s announcement regarding the enhanced Gross Floor Area (GFA) concession mechanism under Practice Note for Authorized Persons, Registered Structural Engineers and Registered Geotechnical Engineers (PNAP) APP-151, BEAM Society Limited (BSL) is delighted to introduce an optional procedure designed to aid applicants in adhering to the latest pre-requisites for granting GFA concessions.

Further to the trial run of Compliance Assessment (CA) for projects undertaking BEAM Plus New Buildings Version 2.0 (NB v2.0) assessment conducted in July 2022, BSL has undertaken an array of stakeholder engagement activities. These have yielded valuable insights from various industry stakeholders, enabling us to refine the CA process for enhanced transparency and comprehension.

1. The CA, which is an optional assessment route, will allow applicants to seek for a "Compliance Assessment"¹ result before the issuance of Occupation Permit (OP) under the Buildings Ordinance (BO).

2. Under the revised assessment procedure, the Final Assessment (FA), which is currently conducted after the issuance of OP, will be split into two parts, viz CA and Remaining FA (RFA). NB v2.0 credit items eligible for CA and RFA submissions are categorised as follows–

(a) CA (to take place after the completion of the Provisional Assessment (PA))

(i) Document Check: credit(s) compliance can be demonstrated by reports, drawings, meeting minutes, catalogues, etc.

(ii) Advance Submittal: credit(s) compliance can be demonstrated by more complex documents such as Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD)/ energy/ acoustic simulations, daylight analysis, ventilation calculations, etc.

(b) RFA (to take place within 18 months after OP)

(i) Performance Check: documentary proof only available after the issuance of OP, such as Indoor Air Quality (IAQ) measurement, Testing & Commissioning (T&C) records, Operations & Maintenance (O&M) training record, etc.

(ii) Credits under Document Check and Advance Submittal can also be submitted in RFA if they are not submitted in the CA.

3. During the CA, applicants may also submit selected credits via the Confirmation of Intent (COI) route, subject to the condition as specified in the BEAM Plus Procedures Manual (Assessment) (revised version 7.0 issued today). The COI serves to confirm the submissions to be made in RFA after OP.

4. Please find the latest Compliance Assessment Checklist with each credit in NB v2.0 categorised according to paragraph 2 above for your information and reference.

5. To further enable applicants to have a better monitoring of the readiness of their submittals and an earlier evaluation of credit achievable for their projects before seeking OP, applicants can and are encouraged to make their submissions through our iBEAM by batches of credits for Document Check and Advance Submittal. Applicant may start the CA any time after the completion of the PA.

6. The applicant will be notified of the result of assessment in 5 working days for Document Check and 15 working days For Advance Submittal under CA. Once the project attains the targeted scoring at this stage, the applicant may choose to conclude the CA. However, the process will automatically cease if the project achieves an overall score of 65%. The RFA shall be completed within 18 months after the issuance of OP.

7. The result of the CA would be issued in one of the three anticipated ratings as follows:

• Anticipated Gold (Overall Scores ≥ 65%)
• Anticipated Silver (Overall Scores ≥ 55%)
• Anticipated Bronze (Overall Scores ≥ 40%)

Further details of the COI will be announced.

8. A series of briefing sessions will be held to explain and demonstrate to applicants the detail procedures of CA and how to achieve credits by using iBEAM. Additionally, we will be hosting exchange forums to collect feedback and suggestions from applicants and stakeholders, with the aim of continually improving our procedures and the user experience on the iBEAM System. Please stay tuned for forthcoming E-news on this topic.

9. Training courses and video demonstration on iBEAM will also be made available on our website.

¹ The BD commissioned a consultancy study on "Review of the Mechanism for encouraging a Quality Built Environment through Gross Floor Area (GFA) Concession”. One of the recommendations is to refine the concession mechanism by requiring new development projects granted with GFA concession to attain a specific rating under BEAM Plus prior to issuance of occupation permits (OP), which will serve to encourage new development projects to achieve higher tier environmental performance. The Compliance Assessment is introduced as the initial stage of the final assessment under the BEAM Plus for assessing the environmental performance of new development projects before the application for OP under the BO.