The Building Research Establishment (BRE) is a centre of

building science Building science is the science and technology-driven collection of knowledge in order to provide better indoor environmental quality (IEQ), energy-efficient built environments, and occupant comfort and satisfaction. ''Building physics, architec ...

in the United Kingdom, owned by charitable organisation the BRE Trust. It is a former UK government national laboratory that was privatised in 1997. BRE provides research, advice, training, testing, certification and standards for both public and private sector organisations in the UK and abroad. It has its headquarters in Garston, Hertfordshire, England, with regional sites in Glasgow,

Swansea Swansea (; cy, Abertawe ) is a coastal city and the second-largest city of Wales. It forms a principal area, officially known as the City and County of Swansea ( cy, links=no, Dinas a Sir Abertawe). The city is the twenty-fifth largest in ...

, the US, India, the Middle East and China.

Programmes

BRE is now funded with income from commissioned research, commercial programmes and by a number of digital tools for use in the construction sector. BRE's certification arm – BRE Global – is an independent, third-party

certification Certification is the provision by an independent body of written assurance (a certificate) that the product, service or system in question meets specific requirements. It is the formal attestation or confirmation of certain characteristics of a ...

body responsible for sustainability certification schemes such as BREEAM (for buildings and communities), CEEQUAL (for infrastructure), the Home Quality Mark (for housing) and LPCB certification (for fire and security products and services). BRE's training arm, the BRE Academy provides online and classroom courses on built environment related issues like sustainability, fire, resilience and building information modelling (BIM). BRE also carries out research and data generation in support of national and international standards and building codes, including the UK building regulations. It also develops its own standards for responsible sourcing (BES 6001), and ethical labour sourcing (BES 6002). BRE's digital tools include construction waste management tool SMARTWaste and construction health, safety and wellbeing tool YellowJacket. It also has UKAS accredited testing laboratories, and a publishing business in partnership with IHS Press called the BRE Bookshop.

Ownership

The Building Research Establishment is owned by the BRE Trust, a registered charity that works to support research and education in the built environment. All of the profits accrued by BRE are passed to the Trust and are used to fund new research and education programmes designed to meet the Trust's goal of promoting safety and

sustainability Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livi ...

. Over the last 20 years the BRE Trust has funded 117 PhDs on a total research programme of £15m, with other funding levered into the sector as a whole from research councils and European Union research sources. The BRE Trust also financially supports five university Centres of Excellence. One of the first Centres established was at the University of Edinburgh in 2004, a research and education programme on fire safety engineering. The other centres are in Strathclyde (energy utilisation),

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

(construction materials), Cardiff ( sustainable engineering), and Brasilia (integrated and sustainable communities).

History

Operation Chastise (the Dambusters' Raid) 16 - 17 May 1943 C(AM)1603

BRE was founded in 1921 as the Building Research Board at East Acton as part of the British Civil Service, as an effort to improve the quality of housing in the United Kingdom. During the Second World War, it was involved in the confidential research and development of the bouncing bomb for use against the

Möhne Dam The Möhne () is a river in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It is a right tributary of the Ruhr. The Möhne passes the towns of Brilon, Rüthen and Warstein. There is a large artificial lake near the mouth of the river, the Möhne Reservoir, us ...

in the Dambusters Raid of 1943 A small scale model of the dam used for testing can still be found at the Centre in Garston, Watford, today. BRE was a founding member in 1976 of BSRIA, the Building Services Research and Information Association and the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) in 2007. Having subsumed a number of other government organisations over the years, including the former Fire Research Station, and the

Princes Risborough Princes Risborough () is a market town in Buckinghamshire, England, about south of Aylesbury and north west of High Wycombe. It lies at the foot of the Chiltern Hills, at the north end of a gap or pass through the Chilterns, the south end ...

Laboratory, it was given executive agency status in 1990, before being privatised by the

Department for Environment, Transport and the Regions The Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions was a United Kingdom Cabinet position created in 1997, with responsibility for the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR). The position and department ...

on 19 March 1997. From 1 January 2013, BRE took over the management of the UK and Ireland chapter of BuildingSMART. In August 2016, Constructing Excellence merged with BRE, with BRE undertaking to maintain the CE's brands and functions. Since the

Grenfell Tower fire On 14 June 2017, a high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST and burned for 60 hours. 72 people died, two later in hospital, with more than 70 injured and 223 escapin ...

(2017), BRE has been criticised for holding poor fire safety standards, all the while via reviewing cases like that of Grenfell.

References

Bibliography

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External links