BREEAM New Construction V7 country weightings available for feedback

We’re inviting our assessor network, clients and stakeholders to give their feedback on BREEAM International New Construction Version 7 (V7) country weightings and BREEAM UK New Construction Version 7 by the 14th January 2025.

BREEAM New Construction V7 is scheduled for release early 2025  . This update aims to ensure that BREEAM’s building assessment, benchmarking, and certification criteria remain aligned with the latest scientific data on energy efficiency and net zero carbon, focusing on whole life carbon. Globally, buildings account for over 30% of global energy use and more than a quarter of emissions.

The weightings for BREEAM New Construction V7 have been reviewed reflecting the changes to the scheme and some improvements in methodology. These are currently draft weightings and we invite feedback on what has been proposed. The same weightings methodology has been applied as previous version of BREEAM with the following changes. 

• Energy is now based on grid emissions only rather than the previous triple metric of grid emissions, availability and cost.
• Water is now based on the "Overall Water Risk" from the World Resources Institute Water Risk Atlas

The scores in the weighting calculation have then been adjusted to reflect the updated relative importance of categories within BREEAM. The aim was to generally:

• Increase the weighting for Materials
• Increase the weighting for Land Use & Ecology
• Reduce the possibility of any country getting 0% for Hazards.

We invite feedback on these draft weightings, please email assessorfeedback@bregroup.com.   Final version of weightings for these and other countries will then be published with BREEAM New Construction V7.