Our Services

Sustainability Services

How we can help you Sustainability is an essential element of all modern built environment developments and masterplans.

Our expertise, knowledge of relevant legislation and practical experience enables us to provide expert consultancy on integrating sustainable development thinking, design and practices into our client’s property investment, development and management activities.

Our capabilities include advanced building performance analysis team, highly experienced building certification assessment team and a broad range of sustainability, energy and environmental specialisms. Our sustainability team also incorporates several specialists with a huge experience in European Research Projects ensuring we remain not only at the leading edge of legislation and technology, but we are also able to propose and integrate innovative solutions in the projects we take part.

Working collaboratively with our clients and their design team, we help develop sustainable design strategies that are specifically tailored to the project. These are honed and supported throughout the design and construction process with leading edge advice, to ensure that good intentions are delivered in practice.

We have the capability to assist in all phases of the project life cycle, from advice on developing masterplans in the most sustainable manner, to detailed environmental modelling to analyse the design of buildings and their engineering systems, through to ongoing consultancy to monitor and drive the continuous improvement of buildings in operation.

Our broad ranging service offer can be provided as part of an integrated multi-disciplinary design, or as standalone services.

Our sustainability team comprehends the following licenced assessors and accredited professionals:

LEED AP BD+C, LEED AP O+M, WELL APs, BREEAM NC Assessor, BIU Assessor, BREEAM AP, Certified Commissioning Authority, LCA Experts, WELL Performance Testing Agent

Building Certification Consultancy: LEED, WELL, BREEAM

We offer licensed assessor and ‘Accredited Professional’ services for BREEAM, LEED and WELL methodologies. We have the expertise and accreditation to guide projects through BREEAM, LEED and WELL certification processes.

We are one of the first practices in Italy to employ WELL Accredited Professionals.

Our experienced experts provide a pro-active assessment service by engaging with the design team early in the project to see that the right issues are targeted at the right time. We provide practical advice and guidance documents based on years of experience to make the process as simple to follow as possible. Assessment statuses are communicated in helpful formats highlighting risks and providing the key information as it is required; the aim is to simplify the task of obtaining the final certification in a timely manner.

We do not believe in a one size fits all approach: we spend time with client and design teams to explore the drivers, aspirations and ramifications of the certification process.

We have extensive experience of guiding design teams to attain challenging goals and are practised at maximising value for clients and providing cost benefit analysis of the solutions proposed.

Envelope and Systems Commissioning

Commissioning is a long established field that is growing and evolving. Our dedicated commissioning team can take your project from concept to realization with minimized move-in and first-year operating costs.

Whether you are seeking straightforward LEED Certification or need a fully dedicated team for your building or mission critical facility, our highly skilled and experienced team will help you get your project done right the first time. Regardless if you are a developer, an owner or part of a construction team, reduce your overall level of risk by putting a successful commissioning process in place for your next project.

Our experts will engage with the owner and design team early in the design process, helping to establish a clear set of envelope and systems objectives into the Owner Project Requirements (OPRs) and the initial groundwork for the project.

Having defined a clear OPR, our experts will then act as an independent advisor, providing quality assurance and communicating requirements to various contractors as well as on materials and design review, testing and construction oversight from design through construction and up to one year after construction completion of the project.

LCA Analysis

LCA is a tool that allows architects and other building professionals to understand the energy use and other environmental impacts associated with all life cycle phases of the building: raw material procurement, manufacturing, construction, operation and decommissioning.

LCA is the cradle-to-grave quantification of potential environmental impacts of products or services. It considers the entire value chain using the ISO 14040/44 standard. LCA removes the guesswork; one can assess buildings to understand their environmental “hot spots” and identify greener alternatives. Commonly reported impact metrics include global warming (“carbon footprint”), acidification (“acid rain”), eutrophication (“algal bloom”), photochemical oxidant creation (“summer smog”) and ozone depletion (“the ozone hole”).

The comparison of whole building LCA results and of individual impact parameters, for each design alternative between baseline and proposed building design, can guide teams in achieving the goal of sustainable design.

DUE Diligence

Due diligence is an established concept for deals and proved to be valuable to avoid risks or recognize opportunities prior to transactions. Knowing the impacts of sustainability aspects of a business across the whole value chain is today a key element for understanding the strategy of a company. Therefore, clients engaged with BEC prior to investing in assets or industries.

Our team of sustainability experts uses standardized procedures for effective due diligences. This approach considers interviews, site visits, background checks or applying industry expertise in order to identify risks and opportunities of improvement and application of environmental and wellbeing international standards of certification.

Energy, Sustainability and Environmental Strategies

All our experts are highly versed in building physics and we apply this expertise to help clients to reduce energy use by exploring every possibility that their building, whether new build or refurbishment, offers.

Design starts with the analysis of all the natural resources available on a site: solar orientation & shading, wind speed and direction, availability of water above and below ground, seasonal and diurnal temperatures and so on.

We work closely with the architect to develop options for the building form, fabric and facade that will maximise the opportunity for passive conditioning, using controlled daylight and natural ventilation. However, passive design, sometimes known as bio-climatic design, will only get us so far. We then focus on the optimisation and efficiency of active M&E systems and the integration of appropriate renewable technologies.

WELL Performance Testing Organization and Performance Testing Agent

BEC is one of the few Italian WELL Performance Testing Organizations which provides on-site verification services through its WELL

Performance Testing Agents to obtain the WELL certification for buildings.
Performance Verification helps ensure that evidence-based health and well-being strategies have been implemented and are performing as planned in the project.

It is divided into two main activities, “Onsite testing” and “Documentation review”. The first analyzes onsite environmental conditions while the second confirms that all design, operational and policy documentation meet expectations.

BEC, as a WELL Performance Testing Organization, provide therefore a third-party verification service for WELL, spearheaded by its in-house WELL Performance Testing Agents.

The Performance Verification includes visual inspections around the building and the execution of a lot of tests about air, water, light, sound, thermal comfort parameters in order to guarantee people health and wellbeing indoor.

BEC has WELL APs and PTAs in its professional team and offers Performance Verification all around Europe.