The long-anticipated BREEAM V7 has now been released, with a renewed focus on electrification & embodied carbon.
The technical guide is available for assessors to download from BRE. This includes some expected and some surprise changes, which will impact how projects targeting BREEAM will be designed and constructed.
Minimum Standards
New minimum standards have been introduced, with the primary aim of making sure that BREEAM ‘Excellent’ and ‘Outstanding’ projects address the full scope of whole life carbon. These include:
- There must be no fossil fuel consumption on site for Outstanding projects, as a minimum standard under Ene 01 / Ene 02. This means any building targeting these ratings cannot have a gas boiler, and will likely use heat pumps instead.
- LCA and embodied carbon reporting is now required as a minimum standard for Excellent and Outstanding projects. Developments targeting excellent must have an all project stage report.
- In the energy category the minimum standards for Excellent and Outstanding can now be achieved based on either the energy performance score achieved in Ene 01, or the operational energy performance credits achieved in Ene 02 (Predictive energy modelling).
- An Indoor Air Quality Plan will be mandatory for Very Good schemes.
Weightings
BREEAM assigns weightings to different categories to greater reward priority areas for sustainable design. There have been some changes to these in V7, which include:
- Increasing the importance of embodied carbon
- Focusing the weighting of energy and carbon on grid emissions factors, to encourage electrification of buildings HVAC and to transition away from gas. This is likely to compliment changes to the building regulations which also focus increasingly on electric systems.
Will BREEAM be harder to pass?
BRE’s own analysis on previous projects has shown that when V7 is applied to previous projects, there is an average score reduction of around 3% when comparing V7 with 2018, and around 5% when compared with V6.1. This would mean these projects would have to try a little harder to achieve the same rating under V7. As we’ve seen above, an increased focus on electrification and embodied carbon could help them get there.
When will assessments start?
BRE have confirmed that registrations will open Sepember 30th, alongside a new BREEAM platform. The current New Construction versions — 2018, V6 (UK and International), and V6.1 — will be closed for registrations on 27 January 2026.
Would you like to discuss or register your scheme?
Call us on 0330 055 34 05 or email be@buildenergy.co.uk.
