(1).jpg)
Sustainable Built Environment
Buildings are a key factor in measuring the quality of our living environment. That's why BEC helped to initiate BEAM, the Building Environmental Assessment Method, in 1996.
Developed with wide industry engagement, BEAM is Hong Kong's leading management tool to measure, improve and label the environmental sustainability of buildings. BEAM defines over 100 best practice criteria to prevent pollution and reduce resource consumption across the whole life of a building, whilst providing a healthy environment inside and outdoors.
Developers, architects, engineers and contractors use BEAM to appraise the planning, design, construction, refurbishment and commissioning of their new developments. Owners, occupiers and managers of existing buildings use BEAM to benchmark and improve their performance in operation, maintenance and management.
So far, over 150 green building developments encompassing over 70 million square feet of space including over 37,000 residential units (as of May 2008) have applied for voluntary, third-party BEAM certification. On per capita basis, BEAM is one of the most widely adopted voluntary schemes of its kind in the world.
BEAM Society
The BEAM Society is a non-profit and member-based association which has more than 160 individual and corporate members. The members originate from all industry disciplines in both the private and public sectors. BEC serves as the Secretariat of the BEAM Society and BEC's assessors are the only qualified BEAM assessor in Hong Kong.
BEAM is owned and operated by the BEAM Society is on a self-financing basis. The society oversees the on-going development and implementation of BEAM standards for building assessment, performance improvement, certification and labelling. The mission of the BEAM Society is to:
-
Improve the environmental performance of buildings across their life cycle;
-
Provide healthier, higher quality, more durable and efficient working and living environments for building occupants;
-
Contribute significantly towards sustainable development in Hong Kong;
-
Build capacity in the industry to move quickly towards;
-
Educate the Hong Kong community to the concepts of eco-efficiency and sustainability;
-
Extend these sound practices beyond Hong Kong, and into the Asia Pacific region.
Society members constituted from stakeholders in the building industry work to continually enhance and refine BEAM to meet the expectation of all interested parties, in particular building users. They also encourage and assist the building industry to move towards sustainable development.
Over 100 BEAM best practice criteria address sustainability issues cover:
-
Energy & Water: low energy design, embodied energy, efficient systems & control, commissioning, O&M, water quality, rain/ grey water recovery, effluent discharge etc.
-
Indoor Environment: indoor air quality, thermal comfort, lighting quality, natural lighting, noise and acoustics, building amenity, spatial flexibility, hygiene, etc.
-
Materials & Waste: recycled and recyclable content, ozone depleting substances, hazardous substances, etc.
-
Site Aspects: accessibility, neighbourhood amenity, ecology & urban greenery, micro-climate, noise/ air/ water pollution etc.
For more information about BEAM or your need of assessing your green building, please contact Mr Benny Au on (852) 2784 3917 or Mr C F Leung (852) 2784 3945.