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BREEAM New Construction Version 7 (V7) brings a suite of updates that sharpen the scheme’s focus on whole-life carbon, operational performance, and alignment with the EU Taxonomy. For developers, project teams, and sustainability consultants navigating the complexities of compliance and certification, understanding what’s changed, and how to manage it, is crucial.
At IES, we’ve taken a close look at what BREEAM V7 introduces and how our IES TaP platform is ready to support your projects from day one.
BREEAM V7 is designed to push the built environment closer to net zero and ensure that performance aligns with both industry ambition and regulatory frameworks. Some of the most important updates include:
To achieve BREEAM Excellent or Outstanding, projects must now demonstrate action across the full spectrum of whole-life carbon, including embodied, operational, refrigerant, and transport-related emissions. This makes energy and carbon performance central to certification success.
“Shell Only projects will no longer be eligible for an Outstanding rating,” notes BRE, “as they cannot meaningfully predict operational energy consumption.”
The categories of buildings that can be assessed have been refined to better reflect real estate trends. This alignment improves ESG reporting and enables more relevant benchmarking across sectors.
BREEAM V7 realigns certification bands for clearer performance targets. The Pass threshold has been lowered from 35% to 30% and Good from 55% to 45%, while Very Good remains at 60%, Excellent at 70%, and Outstanding at 85% or above. These more consistent gaps reduce rating compression, enhance transparency, and give project teams precise score benchmarks for each certification tier.
BRE has moved away from general guidance and returned to clearly defined evidence requirements per credit. This change aims to improve transparency and reduce assessment ambiguity, but also increases the importance of robust tracking and documentation throughout the process.
To support regulatory compliance and sustainable finance goals, several BREEAM credits have been updated to align with the EU Taxonomy. Additional evidence will now be required to prove alignment, especially critical for investors and asset owners reporting against ESG frameworks.
Download the 'BREEAM New Construction Version 7 Summary of Changes' overview.
BREEAM V7 raises the bar and IES TaP helps you clear it. Our cloud-based project management tool for sustainability assessments is fully updated to support the new version. Here's how:
As BREEAM evolves to meet the challenges of climate change, regulation, and ESG accountability, tools like IES TaP are essential to keeping your projects on track. With everything from updated scoring logic to automated reminders, IES TaP ensures that your path to certification is clear, collaborative, and efficient.
Whether you're targeting a high-performance rating or simply trying to stay compliant, let IES TaP take the guesswork out of BREEAM V7. We'll be ready when registrations open.
