BREEAM - project management and sustainable development

The ”Brundtland Report” by the World Commission for Environment and Development defined sustainable development as ”development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs”. It was the ”Brundtland Report” from 1987 that attracted attention to the concept of sustainable development. After this 153 nations signed the Rio Declaration in 1992 committing themself to work out a cross-sectoral sustainable development strategy. Today more than 223 000 companies have implemented and certified environmental management systems. So there is no doubt that environmental issues is high on the international agenda, and that project management methods should be developed considering sustainable development principles.

Today the building industry are guilty of more than 40% of the greenhouse gas emissions. Integrating sustainable development into the construction and building industry has proven to be challenging. One solution was developed in the UK in the 90ths and was called BREEAM. BREEAM stands for Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology and is a ranking system that provides new objectives that must be integrated into the process of creating a building. Because of the complexity and dynamics of sustainable development projects it is necessary to value-based ranking system as BREEAM.