Proven experience in achieving high BREEAM ratings
At Robertson, sustainability is embedded in every project we deliver.
For BREEAM projects, our teams guide the process from early design through to completion, helping customers achieve their target BREEAM rating, which is often critical for achieving funding requirements. This end-to-end approach ensures that sustainability is practical, achievable, and embedded so that the building will perform over its lifetime.
What is BREEAM?
BREEAM is a long-established Environmental Assessment Method created by the Building Research Establishment (BRE) in the UK. It is a globally recognised framework for certifying the sustainability of construction projects. It provides a clearly defined framework to support effective decision-making throughout the project process. Helping to improve environmental, social, and economic performance, so that buildings operate efficiently and enhance occupant wellbeing.
Projects are assessed and certified against criteria including energy use, land and ecology, transport, materials, and waste. They can achieve a basic pass or be rated ‘Good’, ‘Very Good’, ‘Excellent’ or ‘Outstanding’. Robertson translates the assessment criteria into tangible design and construction decisions, ensuring that criteria are met and desired ratings achieved. By doing so, we deliver BREEAM projects that are compliant, energy-efficient, and designed to stand the test of time. Our Robertson Management System and BREEAM compliant environmental reporting tool (SmartWaste) support us in ensuring target ratings are achieved.
The BREEAM ratings system
The BREEAM ratings system is scored from 0 to 100%, with six levels from Unclassified to Outstanding. A project is assessed and scored against sustainability criteria across energy, water, materials, transport, ecology and wellbeing categories.
- Outstanding: innovative projects with the highest level of sustainability performance, scoring 85% or more at BREEAM assessment.
- Excellent: best practice projects, scoring 70% – 84%.
- Very Good: advanced good practice projects, scoring 55% – 69%.
In practice, the rating is shaped early, because design-stage decisions, specification choices and co-ordination between the client, design team and contractor can significantly influence both score and cost.
Early engagement with Robertson is key and offers the flexibility to balance performance, buildability and budget at this stage.
Common challenges include aligning the desired BREEAM rating with the project brief, avoiding late design changes that make credits harder or more expensive to secure, and gathering the right evidence so the final.
assessment is robust and certifiable. We work collaboratively with the wider project team from the outset, heling customers target the right BREEAM rating without unnecessary cost or compromise.
Our BREEAM project approach
We have over 20 years of experience in delivering BREEAM projects, dating back to Great Glen House in Inverness, delivered for Scottish Natural Heritage (now NatureScot) in 2006. At the time, it was one of the first BREEAM Excellent rated projects in the UK. We have now delivered over 70 BREEAM projects with over 25 achieving ‘Outstanding’ or ‘Excellent’ BREEAM ratings.
Our approach embeds sustainability and environmental best practice into the process, from design through construction to handover and operation, engaging the whole project team collaboratively, as well as our supply chain partners.
Our Group Sustainability & Social Impact team includes a former BRE BREEAM auditor and a current BREEAM AP. We are a member of the UK BREEAM Contractors working group.
Through knowledge-sharing and best practice programmes, we embed this expertise across our Group, empowering all our regional construction businesses. Core to our approach is to secure early sustainability wins at the design stage, and then develop cost-optimised options to secure further credits where possible. BREEAM criteria are integrated into our change control and risk management procedures. We carry out an interim assessment to make sure that a design is on track to meet its target rating.
Ensuring quality on site is key. We carry out performance monitoring to ensure BREEAM credit requirements are on track, while gathering robust evidence for the final assessment and certification.
BREEAM Excellent school project, North Wales
Mynydd Isa Campus, north Wales, leads the way in low energy education buildings in the region. We designed and delivered the project in spring 2025 to achieve a BREEAM Excellent rating and be carbon neutral in operation. The sustainable solutions included installing 1,080 solar panels, which are expected to generate over 508,000 kWh of electricity each year, enabling the building to produce as much energy as it consumes.
BREEAM Excellent fire station project, Manchester
Whitefield Fire Station, Manchester: every element has been designed with one goal in mind, to achieve a BREEAM Excellent rating. To reduce environmental impact and boost energy efficiency, the design integrates 3 air source heat pumps, 47 solar panels, and a green roof system alongside robust external drainage solutions.
The station is being built to replace an ageing facility, and during pre-construction, we surveyed the scope of demolition to look for ways to reuse materials and avoid waste. 100% of the existing materials on site, were reused to create a substrate for the new station.
The project is set to complete in Autumn 2026.
BREEAM Excellent office project, Dundee
James Thomson House, Dundee is a Grade A commercial office development for Dundee City Council, designed to achieve BREEAM ‘Excellent’ and EPC ‘A’ ratings, and delivered to these standards in summer 2025. Spanning 51,600 ft² in Dundee’s vibrant waterfront district, this high-spec office scheme showcases our commitment to sustainable, future-ready workspaces, with roof-mounted all-electric AHUs and solar PV panels as part of energy efficient M&E systems.
BREEAM Outstanding research centre project, Teesside
The Net Zero Industry Innovation Centre – a new home for environmental research and development – was constructed in 2023, achieving a BREEAM ‘Outstanding’ in design rating with a score of 90.99% and maintaining its ‘Outstanding’ rating in delivery, with 88.87%. With a focus on minimising embodied carbon during the construction phase, we used One-Click LCA to assess and record this, managing to keep emissions as low as 562 kgCO²e/m².
These projects reflect the range and scale of our work and the practical ways we embed sustainability into everyday construction, ensuring that buildings are efficient, compliant, and designed to perform over the long term.
BREEAM Excellent projects 2026
