Regions such as the European Union, Australia and California – that represent almost a quarter of the worlds’ GDP – already require performance assessment to comply with building regulations. While other countries have or are adopting voluntary building rating systems such as LEED, BREEAM, Green Star and Estidama, which also require performance assessment.
These rating systems offer much more that just targets to reach, they define a structure by which sustainability is incorporated and considered within the whole design process. Incorporating consideration of these regulation/rating requirements right from the start, ensures the highest level of compliance is achieved in the most cost and time effective manner - from feasibility and ballpark estimations, right through to the detailed, actual compliance and certification calculations.
At this moment, the most detailed compliance capabilities with the <Virtual Environment> suite are for LEED, LEED-INDIA and Green Star credit interrogation and UK building regulation compliance (including Energy Performance and Display Energy Certificate generation):
- VE-Toolkit and VE-Gaia for LEED® covers daylighting, comfort, water and renewables (NC 3 & 2.2, Schools 1 & 3, Core & Shell 2 & 3)
- VE-Toolkit and VE-Gaia for LEED-INDIA covers daylighting, comfort, water and renewables (NC v1 and Core & Shell v1)
- VE-Toolkit and VE-Gaia for Green StarTM covers daylighting, comfort and water (Office Design v3, Office As-Built v3, Office Interiors v1.1, Education v1, Healthcare v1, Retail Centre v1)
- <VE Compliance> within VE-Pro covers all routes, regions and building types for UK and Ireland energy-reduction regulations (Part L, Section 6, Part J, EPCs, DECs and BERs)
- BREEAM and Green Star approaches are covered in the current VE-Toolkit and VE-Gaia Water capabilities.
Other regional building regulation compliance, such as BCA Part J and NABERS in Australia can also be assessed in our software through more general routes. VE-Toolkits and VE-Gaia Navigators for BREEAM are currently in development.
