A good BREEAM pre-assessment walks every credit in every category and gives each one a status: achieved, achievable, at risk, or lost. This checklist sets out what that walk actually covers, category by category, so you know what information to have ready and which disciplines will be asked to commit to what. It pairs with our pre-assessment overview and the service page.
BREEAM weights its categories differently — energy is typically the heaviest section — and every rating level carries mandatory minimum standards that cannot be traded away. That is why a checklist matters: the score is won or lost across dozens of small commitments, not one big gesture.
The ten categories: what a pre-assessment checks
1. Management
- Project brief and stakeholder consultation evidence from the earliest stages;
- Elemental life-cycle cost planning;
- Responsible construction practices and site-impact commitments the contractor must sign up to;
- Commissioning, handover and aftercare provisions — cheap credits, but only if committed early.
2. Health & wellbeing
- Daylight provision to the visual-comfort criteria — this is where daylight modelling to BS EN 17037 and BRE BR 209 earns credits (our home turf: see BS EN 17037 explained);
- Glare control, internal air quality plans, ventilation rates;
- Acoustic performance;
- Under Version 7, indoor air quality plans and smoking restrictions tighten for Very Good and above.
3. Energy
- Reduction of energy use and carbon against the Part L baseline — usually the single largest block of available credits;
- Energy monitoring and sub-metering;
- Low-carbon design and, under Version 7, energy performance benchmarks moving toward measured outcomes. One linking note: the modelling here is the same work that feeds an energy statement.
4. Transport
- Proximity to public transport (largely fixed by site selection — score it honestly);
- Cyclist facilities: storage, showers, lockers;
- Electric vehicle charging — Version 7 expects at least 10% active (7kW+) and 20% passive provision;
- Travel plans and home-working infrastructure.
5. Water
- Water consumption against baseline fittings — evidenced with the Part G calculator (see passing the water calculator);
- Leak detection and metering;
- Water-efficient irrigation and vehicle-wash equipment where relevant.
6. Materials
- Life-cycle assessment (LCA) of the building fabric — mandatory territory for Excellent under Version 7;
- Responsible sourcing certificates for key materials;
- Durability and protection measures, and design for disassembly.
7. Waste
- Construction resource management plans and diversion-from-landfill targets;
- Operational recyclable-waste storage;
- Adaptation for climate change and functional adaptability.
8. Land use & ecology
- Ecological value of the site and protection of existing features;
- Enhancement measures — where the biodiversity net gain work you already owe under the Environment Act 2021 can be aligned with BREEAM credits (see delivering 10% BNG);
- Long-term ecological management commitments.
9. Pollution
- Refrigerants — Version 7 requires zero ozone-depletion-potential refrigerants;
- NOx emissions from heating plant;
- Surface water run-off attenuation (one linking sentence: this overlaps the drainage strategy in a flood risk assessment);
- Light pollution and noise from plant.
10. Innovation
- Up to ten bonus percentage points for exemplary performance or approved innovations — a useful buffer-builder when the core score is tight.
How to use this checklist before the pre-assessment
- Gather: site plan, floor plans and elevations, the emerging services strategy, landscape proposals and any ecology survey;
- Confirm the applicable scheme and version — from 2026 registrations that generally means Version 7;
- Fix the target rating from the policy or condition wording — see BREEAM planning conditions;
- Identify the credits fixed by site (transport, ecology baseline) first — they set the ceiling;
- Ask each discipline to confirm, in writing, the commitments assumed for their credits.
How the scoring works
Each category contains a fixed number of available credits. The credits you achieve are converted to a category percentage, multiplied by that category’s weighting, and summed into the overall score that sets your rating — Pass at 30% up to Outstanding at 85%, as set out in our ratings guide. Two practical consequences follow. First, a credit in a heavily weighted category is worth more than the same effort in a light one, so the tracker should always show weighted value, not raw credit counts. Second, because weightings differ between schemes and versions, a checklist scored against the wrong manual produces a wrong answer — confirm the version before anyone starts ticking boxes.
Key takeaways
- A pre-assessment must cover all ten categories credit by credit — anything less is a guess.
- Energy usually carries the most weight; management and water hide the cheapest credits; transport and ecology are largely fixed by the site.
- Mandatory minimum standards at your target rating cannot be traded away — find them first.
- Version 7 raises the bar on embodied carbon, refrigerants and EV charging.
How Fortress Associates can help
Our BREEAM pre-assessment service runs exactly this checklist and returns a tracker with a projected score, buffer and actions by discipline — with the daylight, energy, water and ecology calculations produced in-house. Our sustainability statement service wraps the planning story around it for free, covering BNG, water efficiency, urban greening and BREEAM where required. Talk to us about your scheme or browse all services.
Sources & further reading
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