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BEAM P
LUS FOR
E
XISTING
B
UILDINGS
F
RAMEWORK
V
ERSION
1.2
Copyright © 2012 BEAM Society Limited. All rights reserved.
Page 5
1.2 A
SSESSMENT
F
RAMEWORK FOR
EXISTING BUILDINGS
This document describes BEAM Plus for Existing Buildings. Assessment
of new buildings and buildings that have undergone major refurbishment
is carried out using BEAM Plus for New Buildings. Both New Buildings
and Existing Buildings of BEAM are designed to dovetail together to
allow coverage of the life cycle performance of buildings.
Assessment under BEAM Plus for Existing Buildings covers the
management, operation and maintenance of a building and may be
initiated at any time. BEAM Plus for Existing Buildings aims to reduce the
environmental impacts of existing buildings whilst improving quality and
user satisfaction, by adoption of the best techniques available within
reasonable cost.
According to the emerging international consensus, building
assessments should be performance based as far as possible.
Assessment needs to take a holistic view of building performance with
emphasis on life-cycle impacts. Assessment purely on the basis of
prescriptive features would preclude buildings without the features from
obtaining a good assessment result regardless of the actual
performance. Furthermore, assessment based on features may
encourage feature-based design, construction and operating practices.
A notable attribute of BEAM Plus for Existing Buildings, as compared
with most schemes in use elsewhere, is that an assessment for an
existing building is closely related to a BEAM Plus for New Buildings
assessment, should one have been carried out at construction. BEAM
Plus for New Buildings is not finalised until a building is completed,
ensuring that ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ design features are actually
implemented and construction practice meets the required performance
standards. It would be expected that a building graded under BEAM Plus
for New Buildings and suitably operated and maintained would achieve a
similar grade under BEAM Plus for Existing Buildings five years later.
H
OLISTIC
A
SSESSMENT
BEAM integrates the assessment of many key aspects of building
performance, embracing:
hygiene, health, comfort, and amenity;
land use, site impacts and transport;
use of materials, recycling, and waste management;
water quality, conservation and recycling; and
energy efficiency, conservation and management.
T
RANSPARENCY
BEAM recognises that assessment criteria and methods to achieve
compliance need to be transparent, providing details of the benchmarks
(baselines), data, assumptions and issues taken into account in the
assessments and the credit ratings.
A
SSESSMENTS OF
E
XISTING
B
UILDINGS
BEAM Plus for Existing Buildings attempts to cover all types of buildings,
from small single buildings to large buildings on residential and
commercial estates. The assessment needs to cover the various types of
premises contained within the building, and may involve premises that
are fitted-out by tenants.
The purpose is not only to assess the actual performance of a building,
but also to give guidance on potential performance, that is, the best
performance that can be obtained from the building given the prevailing
levels of occupancy and nature of use. Actual performance determines
operating costs, consumption of resources and the by-products from
building use, and is the starting point for determining various
improvement measures.