BREEAM staat voor Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method en werd oorspronkelijk ontwikkeld door het Building Research Establishment (BRE), een Engelse onderzoeksorganisatie die enigszins te vergelijken is met het Nederlandse TNO. BRE heeft meer dan 100.000 gebouwen gecertificeerd en is actief in 15 landen. De toevoeging ‘NL’ maakt duidelijk dat het hier om de Nederlandse versie gaat.
bron: www.dgbc.nl
Triple Bottom Line
Sustainability is usually measured according to Environmental, Financial and Social factors. The success of businesses is normally measured on the ‘Bottom Line’, or financial profit & loss. The success of sustainable systems is therefore measured on the Triple Bottom Line, including social and environmental profit & loss alongside financial.
Sustainability requires that the system does not make a loss in any of the three areas. However, in reality this means that the system must aim to make a profit, in order that inevitable occasional losses balance out and do not result in the degradation and collapse of the system.
Initially it may be possible to design products or systems that only fall into one or two categories. However, in the long run designers should be aiming to address all three areas and create entirely sustainable systems, recognizing that all three issues are heavily interlinked.
