Added value


Collaboration is central to delivering successful projects. We work alongside our clients to understand their drivers and aspirations. We are not here to just deliver a building: we are here to help clients achieve long-term cost savings, push the boundaries of sustainable buildings, achieve building accreditations, and enhance their brands.

 


Embodied carbon

Embodied carbon is an increasingly important subject for the built environment, but has taken a back seat compared to in-use carbon emissions. The embodied carbon of a building (the CO2e associated with the construction of a building, the transportation and manufacture of it's materials, together with end of life emissions) can be huge, so the more we learn about its impacts, the more the financial and environmental case becomes clearer. 

  • Depending on the stage of the project, we can use One Click high level lifecycle assessment (LCA) tool to advise the design team on the best options available to minimise embodied carbon in a building.
  • We can work with our suppliers to understand the embodied carbon of different materials, so identify alternative options to reduce it

BREEAM

We have over 20 years' experience achieving BREEAM certifications - the world's leading sustainability assessment method. Many of our clients choose BREEAM assessments to demonstrate their sustainability commitment throughout a building's planning, design, construction and operation.





We recognise that achieving a BREEAM building is a significant undertaking that requires a well-managed, systematic and informed approach. We are able to guide projects on their BREEAM journey:

  • Our in-house BREEAM assessors and BREEAM advisory professionals (APs) can undertake assessments and provide relevant experience to achieve BREEAM AP credits.
  • We can work with clients at tender stage to conduct or review pre-assessments, highlighting risky credits and also potential credits, to ensure targeted ratings are achievable.
  • During construction, BAM’s exemplary site management practices and regular site visits by our sustainability team ensure all work is undertaken with BREEAM and sustainability in mind.
  • Throughout the project we are always available to deliver bespoke BREEAM training, tailored to the project's targeted credits.






Building performance

BAM is passionate about creating comfortable and liveable buildings for current and future generations. Building performance is a part of this.

Understanding a building's in-use performance is becoming more important to clients, as it can help lower their energy and operating costs over the lifecycle of a building, and so also lower carbon emissions in-use.

We continue to develop our building performance capabilities in partnership with our clients, external consultants and supply chain, and are committed to learning more about how our buildings perform. This involves actively staying involved with a building after the completion of construction.


Through our early involvement with Innovate UK's Building Performance Evaluation (BPE) programme, along with other studies, we have developed our approach to building performance evaluations:

  • We can deliver projects following the Government Soft Landings framework, but have also created a BAM soft landings framework to fit varying project requirements.
  • We offer post occupancy evaluations of varying depth and involvement through our in-house building performance team.
  • In collaboration with our facilities management business, Soft Landing Technicians can accompany a building throughout the handover phase and into the first year of operation.
  • Deliver buildings that achieve operational energy targets, such as DEC ratings.
  • We have developed a process to automatically produce room user guides from our BIM models that can help occupants, especially in complex buildings, understand how to control their local environment.






Circular economy learning

BAM recognises the value the circular economy will have for our industry and society as a whole. By moving from the traditional take, make and dispose model, we aim to eliminate waste and ensure there are routes for materials to flow with as little degradation or loss of value as possible. Parts of the UK are already taking particular interest - in Scotland, Glasgow Chambers of Commerce and Zero Waste Scotland aim to make the city a circular economy ‘hotspot’; the Welsh government has announced a ‘circular economy fund’; and the London Waste and Recycling Board have created a circular economy route map.


As a market leader in the circular economy, BAM is always looking for new opportunities and can bring a wealth of experience to projects:

  • We are the only contractor to be part of the CE100, and have worked with partners to produce a guide to circular business models for the built environment.
  • We were one of the 16 parties involved with the EU-funded Buildings As Material Banks project, looking at creating ways to increase the value of building materials, such as the production of material passports.
  • We have worked with clients to deliver circular economy services and buildings, such as Circl for ABN AMRO; and working with Whitecroft lighting to retrofit lights at Cheshire Police HQ, saving 2000kg material.
  • We provided circular economy guidance for HS2, the Greater London Authority’s new Circular Economy statements for the draft London Plan and UKGBC’s guidance for clients.