Specifiers must understand Green Guide role

Specifiers must look at the overall impact of their building if they wish to achieve the highest score against BREEAM and the Code for Sustainable Homes (CSH), rather than assessing materials alone against the Green Guide.

This is the message in a joint statement from BRE Global and the Construction Products Association, which said the increasing use of the Green Guide, including its reference in the CSH, means there is increasing responsibility to ensure it is properly understood.

This includes acknowledging that materials not achieving top marks in the Green Guide “can still be, and already are, part of buildings achieving high levels in CSH and BREEAM”, and that the difference between an E and A+ rating for some products can be “relatively small in absolute terms”.

“Without this basic knowledge there are risks that users will simply use it as a tick box activity and not look carefully and holistically at the Green Guide itself, CSH and BREEAM within which it sits,” the organisations said.