The Green Guide to Specification: An Environmental Profiling System for Building Materials and Components Book

	Foreword	vii
	Acknowledgements	viii
	The Authors	ix
Part 1	Introduction	1
	A global issue	2
	The purpose of this book	2
	How this edition of The Green Guide to Specification relates to other BRE publications and tools	4
	Previous editions of The Green Guide to Specification	4
	BRE Environmental Profiles of construction materials, components and buildings	5
	The Green Guide to Housing Specification	5
	BREEAM	5
	Envest	5
	Ecopoints and weightings	6
	Green procurement	6
	Life Cycle Assessment	7
	Sources of LCA data in The Green Guide to Specification	8
	Environmental issues	9
	Climate change	9
	Fossil fuel depletion	9
	Ozone depletion	9
	Human toxicity to air and human toxicity to water	9
	Ecotoxicity	9
	Waste disposal	9
	Water extraction	9
	Acid deposition	9
	Eutrophication	10
	Summer smog	10
	Minerals extraction	10
	Embodied energy	10
	Further information	11
	How The Green Guide to Specification was compiled	11
	How the elements were chosen	11
	How the specifications were chosen	11
	How Green Guide environmental issue ratings were assessed	11
	How Green Guide Summary Ratings are generated	12
	Weightings	12
	Worked example	13
	Other issues	13
Part II	How to use The Green Guide to Specification	15
	Layout of the element sections	16
	Functional unit	16
	Building pie charts	16
	Summary Rating range	17
	Significant environmental issues for elements	17
	Ratings tables	17
	Using the ratings	18
	The importance of different elements	19
	Arrangement of the building elements	20
Part III	Green Guide ratings	21
	High-mass elements	22
	Upper floors	23
	Ground floors and substructure	25
	Insulation	25
	External walls	27
	Superstructure	28
	General comments on external walls	28
	Insulation	28
	Division of external wall specifications into subsections	29
	Traditional forms of cavity wall construction	30
	'Rainscreen' claddings	32
	Cladding and masonry construction	33
	Cladding and framed construction	36
	Roofs	39
	Insulation	40
	Division of roofing specifications into subsections	40
	Flat roofs	41
	'Traditional' pitched roofs	43
	Low pitched roofs	45
	Medium- and low-mass elements	46
	Floor finishes and coverings	47
	Hard floor finishes	49
	Soft floor coverings	50
	Substructural floor systems/floor surfacing	51
	Windows and curtain walling	53
	Internal walls and partitioning	55
	Loadbearing partitions	56
	Non-loadbearing partitions	57
	Proprietary and demountable partitions	58
	Suspended ceilings and ceiling finishes	59
	Doors	63
	Other materials and elements	66
	Internal paint finishes	67
	Insulation	69
	All insulations (including those using HCFCs)	70
	Zero ozone depletion potential (ZODP) insulations	72
	Landscaping: hard surfacing	75
	Landscaping: boundary protection	77
Part IV	Appendices	79
Appendix 1	General notes relating to the use of specific materials and particular environmental issues	80
	Timber	80
	Indoor air quality issues	80
	Insulation: CFCs, HCFCs and HFCs	81
	PVC	81
Appendix 2	Worked example of the generation of a Green Guide rating for an internal wall specification	83
	Generation of the environmental profile for the specification	83
	Generation of the Green Guide rating for each environmental issue	85
	Generation of the Summary Rating for each specification	85
Appendix 3	Production of a BRE Environmental Profile for a material using the BRE Environmental Profiles Methodology	87
	Inventory analysis	87
	Impact assessment	87
Appendix 4	BREEAM case study	88
Appendix 5	Differences in environmental issues from previous editions	90
	Contacts and further information	91
	References	93
	Index	95