BREEAM: Designing for People, not Points
In our latest series, we are asking whether certifications are really serving the people they are meant to.
Words by Andy Love, Managing Director, Love Design Studio
In art, I have always cared more about the craft than the artist. In football, I’m more interested in the skill than the stats. The same applies to buildings. Our work at Love Design Studio isn’t about helping clients win awards. Our purpose is to help create spaces that adapt, evolve and genuinely serve the people who use them.
A top sustainability rating is reassuring, but the real success is when a space feels alive, supporting human connection, focus and wellbeing. That’s when I know we have delivered.
I’m a licensed BREEAM Assessor and AP with over 15 years’ experience. I respect BREEAM and know how to make it work for our clients. But a building scoring ‘Excellent’ or ‘Outstanding’, doesn’t always mean that it’s a better place to live, work or spend time in - or even that it’s more sustainable than the one next door. There’s always more to the story.
Adapting to change
We live in a world facing multiple, overlapping crises: climate change, biodiversity loss, economic inequality and global unrest. The built environment sits at the heart of this challenge, shaping how we respond to heatwaves, extreme weather, political pressures and the growing demands placed on public infrastructure.
Yet, in our industry, sustainable practice is still too often measured by metrics alone: operational or embodied energy or the quantity of materials saved or spent. These set an important baseline for performance, but they don’t tell you:
What a building feels like to live or work inside
How it performs during a hot summer
How calm or stressed a space can make you feel
How connected a building is to green or open space
We think it is time to build on environmental metrics with genuine concern for human health, resilience and wellbeing. Recent UK heatwaves, extreme weather and global political events have shown we must adapt buildings to protect people - especially the most vulnerable.
Rethinking what matters
At Love Design Studio we champion certification schemes like BREEAM, WELL, NABERS and Passivhaus. Used well, these frameworks validate the deeper, more meaningful work of environmentally sustainable design. Our team includes (probably) some of the most experienced BREEAM professionals in the country. We know the strategic moves that can save design teams tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds.
But we also know where these tools fall short. We know when to push back - when schemes start driving decisions that serve the points system rather than the people the building is meant to support.
Let’s be honest, the BREEAM manual can sometimes feel like a Goosebumps “Choose Your Own Adventure” book, flipping endlessly between sections and tick boxes, trying to unpick what the criteria really means.
While BREEAM has undeniably helped drive awareness and embed better environmental practice across the industry, it hasn’t evolved fast enough. Sustainability is an ever-changing discipline. Without radical change BREEAM risks being overtaken by smarter systems focused on real-world impact. AI-driven systems are coming. Certification is at a crossroads: it’s time to prioritise occupants over points.
That means putting more weight on how thermal comfort, air quality, daylight access and noise control affects people differently. And embedding real-world feedback through enhanced post-occupancy evaluations - not just at handover but years into a building’s life. After all, buildings are for people.
Prioritising health alongside energy efficiency does bring nuanced challenges. Comfort and air quality improvements may raise costs or increase complexity. Post-occupancy evaluations require commitment from all. But this is important if we want to create better sustainable practice.
With the recent release of BREEAM Version 7, we welcome some of the essential updates, from a stronger focus on climate resilience and post-occupancy monitoring to a more meaningful approach to wellbeing. But at its core, BREEAM still rewards points more than people. That is why it is so important to work with organisations that prioritise people from the outset. When you do, schemes like BREEAM can be powerful tools, helping create places that don’t just tick boxes, but genuinely attract and support those who use them.
The people’s guide to certifications
Love Design Studio is a purpose-driven consultancy, founded to help put people at the heart of sustainable design. As our cities evolve, we believe sustainability certifications should evolve with them.
With this in mind, we are starting a new campaign to investigate the role of certifications in a rapidly changing world. Over the coming months, we’ll be sharing honest reflections from our team on these schemes to question whether they can – and should - do more. We will be publishing our findings and recommendations this autumn, to help us design buildings that work better for the people inside them.