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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 6
For existing buildings, there are two facets to performance. Building and
system performance are a consequence of technical features of the
building and depend on the standards to which the building was built
and/or subsequently modified. The building end use and the
effectiveness of management practices in operating the building also
have significant influence on performance. In order to encourage
improvements, BEAM Plus for Existing Buildings, distinguishes between
the potential impacts of these two aspects of the performance of a
building.
E
STATES
When a building forms part of an estate then certain features of the
estate design will be included in the assessment. In an estate containing
several buildings of essentially similar design, assessment of Site
Aspects, Materials Aspects and Water Use for one building can apply to
all the buildings, although Energy Use and IEQ assessments will require
further evaluation if all the buildings are to be graded under BEAM.
S
PECIAL
C
ASES
It is possible that some buildings may not be fully embraced by the
criteria currently presented in BEAM Plus for Existing Buildings due to
their unusual nature or variety of forms and system designs, etc. This will
be particularly true in respect of assessment of energy use. In such
circumstances certain assessment criteria or the method of
demonstrating compliance may need to be modified. This would require
endorsement from BEAM Society Limited.
A
BSOLUTE VERSUS
R
ELATIVE
P
ERFORMANCE
Through an opinion survey of BEAM Society members [4], it is clear that
there should be a balance between assessment of ‘absolute’
performance, i.e. issues over which the Client may have little or no
control (e.g. car parking provisions), and ‘relative’ performance, i.e.
issues that can be influenced by the Client.
In addition, BEAM takes the position that assessment of some aspects of
building performance should not be penalised because of externalities
that are not under the control of the Client, such as the efficiency of the
utility supplying energy sources to a building. In this case, only
consumption is quantified (e.g. kWh) and rated, and not the consequent
environmental loadings (e.g. CO
2
-kg) unless the mix of energy sources
(gas, oil, electricity) is significant.
A
SSESSMENT
B
OUNDARIES
BEAM is concerned about the interactions between the assessed
building, neighbouring properties, and the neighbourhood in general. The
assessment seeks to reduce negative impacts on neighbours and
rewards efforts to improve the quality of the immediate surroundings to
the benefit of the neighbourhood: the concept of ‘good neighbour’
buildings.
A
SSESSABLE
A
REA
-
D
ISCRETE
A
REAS
E
XCLUDED
F
ROM
A
SSESSMENT
The BEAM Plus rating tool is structured to cope with different types of
buildings and allows certain discrete areas within the boundary of the
project, or development, to be excluded from the assessment. Areas
within the development or building, such as common areas, MVAC plant
rooms, transformer rooms, lifts and lift motor rooms, plant rooms for
environmentally friendly systems and features such as rainwater / grey
water recycling systems, battery rooms for solar panels or similar, club
house areas, swimming pools, car parks, garbage disposal and handling
areas, workshops, balconies or similar CANNOT be excluded from the
assessable area of the project.
4
BEAM Society. Report on the Development of HK-BEAM Scheme – Survey I Framework.