BREEAM goes round the world with RFO
30th June 2015

The sustainability credentials of building refurbishment and fit-out projects around the world can now be assessed and recognised under BREEAM, following the launch of BREEAM International Refurbishment and Fit-Out

BREEAM International RFO was developed followed the success of an equivalent scheme in the UK, said the scheme’s manager, Sarah Summerson of BRE: “It provides a tailored version that can assess refurbishment and fit-out projects all over the world, by taking account of the range of local and regional standards, conditions and climates.

“Wherever they are, improving existing buildings presents difficult challenges – the BREEAM RFO assessment scheme recognises these by being sufficiently flexible to assess projects against the issues that each can reasonably be expected to influence.”

BREEAM International Refurbishment and Fit-Out allows projects on a broad range of building types to be assessed, including offices, retail facilities, industrial buildings, schools, universities, hotels and other short stay accommodation.
This flexibility derives from the scheme’s four-part modular approach, giving a range of certification options. Part One deals with the building fabric and structure, Part Two is concerned with core services (e.g. centralised M&E plant), Part Three deals with local services and Part Four with interior design. Refurbishment and fit-out projects can be assessed against one or all of the four parts, or any combination, depending on which are relevant to a particular project. This gives the option for just part of a building to be assessed (e.g. a shop fit-out) or the entire building.

BREEAM International Refurbishment and Fit-Out is the latest of a number of international BREEAM standards that have been in operation for a number of years in many of the 70 countries in which BREEAM certification is recognised.

www.breeam.com