Elemental » Biodiversity, BREEAM and LEED
Mel Starrs has provided an excellent post on the way in which LEED and BREEAM treat biodiversity. Apparently, there is no common approach to dealing with this aspect of the environment among current assessment tools. The post highlights the main differences between two of the most frequently used methods.
Though the post draws heavily on the recently published UKGBC report, it offers some useful advice on making sure anything other than the smallest projects employs a professional ecologist.
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Ecology credits are often easy to get and they have a high weighting. The key is to be organised and get a specialist ecologist in to carry out a survey at an early stage so you can take account of any recommendations in the design phase. There are many specialist consultants out there including the RSK Group (see http://www.rskcarterecological.co.uk for more details).