Government insists green school building requirement could yet survive

The government has insisted it has not come to a conclusion over the future of its green schools building programme, despite industry fears Education Secretary Michael Gove is keen to scrap a requirement for schools to adhere to the globally recognised BREEAM green building standard.

Ministers from the Department for Education (DfE) are expected to shortly announce their conclusions on a review into capital spending, which includes a recommendation that local authorities should not be forced to adhere to the BRE Environmental Assesment Method (BREEAM).

"Whilst the current move to simplify BREEAM should be welcomed, it could go further, and the expectation that it should be used at all times does not allow for local authorities to best determine the tools that they should use to ensure sustainable buildings," the review states.

Organisations including Aldersgate Group, UK Green Building Council (UKGBC), and software developer Southfacing Services have written to the Secretary of State this week warning him that a decision to drop the requirement would harm the construction industry and undermine efforts to reduce the environmental impact of new schools. Instead they urged the department to work with BRE to simplify how school's qualify for the standard.

They were particularly concerned that DfE had not consulted on the recommendation, voicing fears that a conclusion to drop BREEAM had already been reached.

However, a spokesman from the DfE today told BusinessGreen that it had not decided to scrap the requirement that new schools must adhere to BREEAM, maintaining that its plans focused on streamlining, rather than scrapping BREEAM for schools.

"The review recommends that the government should work to reduce bureaucracy, not to scrap it altogether," he said. "We want to work with stakeholders and businesses to work out a way of streamlining the process."

However, he could not rule out the possibility that BREEAM could yet be scrapped.

"One option is to remove it altogether and one is just to reduce bureaucracy," he said.

The news was welcomed by industry players, who said they were relieved to hear that Gove was open to other options.

"If a final decision has genuinely not been taken, then that's good news of sorts. It means there is still time to convince DfE they would be making a huge mistake by scrapping the BREEAM commitment," John Alker, a spokesman for UKGBC, told BusinessGreen.

"If DfE wants to work with industry stakeholders, we'd be delighted to hear from them."

Clare Lowe of Southfacing Services said the government would be taking a "massive step backwards" if it scrapped the requirement.

"The review did say to look at reducing bureaucracy, but a lot of people read that as a recommendation that it should be scrapped so I'm relieved to hear that the government is taking a more measured view," she told BusinessGreen.

"The main thing is that the government is prepared to make sure that everybody has an input into the process, from schools, to designers to construction companies, in order to get a broad base of opinion on how the system can be improved."