Birmingham Schools Private Finance Initiatives (PFI)

Project

  • To act as sustainability advisor to a consortia bidding for the DBFO of 13 schools with an estimated value of £70M.
  • The project called for a high level of sustainability in the eventual designs but within challenging budgets.

The approach

  • Identify a method for measuring sustainability in the schools covering both the design and the operation. We recommended BREEAM for Schools.
  • Rank the sustainability measures by cost to allow the project consortia to adopt the ‘free’ and ‘low cost’ measures first.
  • Work with the design and FM team to ensure a robust sustainability approach was adopted.
    Architectural drawing showing a building's sustainability features

The challenge

  • To make sustainability compliance simple and measurable.
  • To identify a simple compliance system and provide a cost plan that accurately priced the cost of sustainability compliance.
  • To provide sustainability compliance within a tight budget.

Outcome

  • BREEAM for Schools was adopted as the method for measuring sustainability on the project.
  • The on-cost for compliance with BREEAM Excellent was identified as being between £20-£30/m² depending on variables such as site constraints, minimum building specification (materials) and school size.
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