by Brianna Crandall — September 23, 2015—U.K.-based BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method) has extended its recognition of third-party certification schemes for the purpose of demonstrating compliance with the BREEAM criteria for “volatile organic compound (VOC) emission levels (products)” with the approval of a number of European-based programs, including the Eurofins Indoor Air Comfort and Indoor Air Comfort GOLD pan-European product certifications. This follows the recent approval of North American-based programs from SCS Global Services Ltd and UL LLC (See FMLink article).
“This is a further move to recognizing additional certification schemes which address the important issue of VOCs in construction and fit-out products. We are pleased to recognize these European schemes that increases BREEAM’s international coverage and applicability in this area,” says Alan Yates, technical director for BREEAM.
“The inclusion of the Indoor Air Comfort certification in the list of third-party certification schemes that are accepted by BREEAM to show compliance with the BREEAM criteria on VOC levels demonstrates the ambition of BREEAM to make use of existing state-of-art programs, and to ease life for building planners to identify compliant products. We also welcome the acceptance of other European schemes such as the EMICODE, M1 and AgBB,” says Soren Junker Nielsen, general manager of Eurofins Product Testing A/S.
This additional means of compliance is applicable to the following current BREEAM programs and can also be retrospectively applied to superseded versions of these programs that include similar VOC criteria:
- BREEAM International: New Construction 2013 (Hea 02) & Non-Domestic Refurbishment and Fit-out 2015 (Hea 02)
- BREEAM UK: New Construction 2014 (Hea 02), Domestic Refurbishment 2014 (Hea 03) & Non-Domestic Refurbishment and Fit-out 2014 (Hea 02)
A full listing of the third-party programs currently recognized by BREEAM can be found in the recently published BREEAM Guidance Note, “GN 22: BREEAM Recognised Schemes for VOC Emissions from Building Products,” which can be downloaded from the Resources section of the BREEAM Web site after logging in with an e-mail address.
