Live Green: 52 steps for a more sustainable life (sustainable gift, self sufficiency, sustainable home)

Product Information

All products with BES 6001 certification from BRE can carry the BRE Global Certification Mark for responsibly sourced products certified to BES 6001:

Delivering a route to benchmark and achieve continuous improvement regarding the sustainability of construction products Making changes to the way in which we choose products and services can have a major impact on the construction and related industries and significantly reducetheir impact on the environment. Areas of importance include the extraction of raw materials, material waste, transport of products and materials, energy consumption, heat loss and emissions from manufacturing processes and buildings. However, greening the built environment is not as simple as specifying products and services that claim to be ‘green'. Green claims are very easy to make, but considerably harder to substantiate. Independent approval of products and services ensure that not only ‘green' claims are substantiated, but that they meet performance standards appropriate for their intended use. GreenBookLive is the unique reference source and online listing of environmental products and services. Unlike many other schemes BES 6001 is not a sector specific standard; any material, product or product group can be certificated against the standard. However, in some cases individual construction product sectors have made use of the BES 6001 scheme as a framework and have developed their own sector scheme which is fully compliant and equivalent to BES 6001. An example is the Eco-Reinforcement scheme for steel reinforcement in concrete – please see www.eco-reinforcement.org.

ABREEAM Assessorunderstands the process andtechnical issues covered by the schemefor which theymust be qualified and licensed.Their role is to interpret the requirements of each issue in relation to a scheme, communicate these requirements to their client and liaisewith theproject team to collate the evidence which needs to be submitted along with the assessment report. BREEAM covers a multitude of disciplines andno single Assessor is necessarilya 'technical'expert in all the areas covered by BREEAM.Licensed Assessors are kept up to datewith the latest developments in the schemes through a monthly communication direct from BREEAM.

and companies with BES 6001 certified products can use the BRE BES 6001 Responsible Sourcing Badge of Recognition on marketing material, letterheads etc: the planned level of pass (the higher the anticipated level the longer the certification process is likely to be) – although such certification secures more credits in BREEAM Claims about the environmental performance of building products are easy to make but difficult to substantiate without a transparent measuring system.

Use the search facility below to find a BREEAM Assessor or In-Use Assessor. Note you can also search for a Home Quality Mark Assessor and Code for Sustainable Homes Assessor by selecting from the Scheme drop-down box.

The process, following the acceptance of the BRE’s proposal and receipt by BRE of full certification fees, is: Where supply chain organisations source constituent materials for the assessed product from outside the EU, or from states that have not declared adherence to the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, they must undertake appropriate risk assessments and demonstrate due diligence in monitoring compliance with all the requirements of the ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work. In addition, the organisation must have a documented system for its purchasing process and the approval of all of its suppliers who provide input materials for the product being assessed. The system must be designed to implement the criteria with respect to the BES 6001 standard. The organisation must also maintain a list of all the suppliers that provide constituent materials for the assessed product. Environmental profiles measure the impacts of a construction material, product or building system throughout its life – not only during its manufacture, but also its use in a building over a typical building lifetime. This includes its extraction, processing, use and maintenance and its eventual disposal. One very good reason to seek BES 6001 certification comes from the UK Contractor’s Group(who represent over 30 leading construction companies who together account for a third of the UK construction industry turnover). The UKCG state that: