To reduce the level of greenhouse gas emissions arising from the leakage of refrigerants from building systems.

• Increase system resilience and market value through the use of low impact refrigerants in buildings.
• Minimising future liabilities and adaptation costs associated with changes to statutory requirements relating to refrigerant use.
• Limit the potential release and impact of refrigerant gases into the atmosphere.
• Assist in meeting corporate social responsibility reporting targets relating to refrigerant use.

The typical refrigerants used in building cooling systems are major greenhouse gases that are many times more potent than carbon dioxide in their contribution to global warming and climate change. Although released in much smaller quantities they are, never the less, a significant contributor to increasing global temperatures. As such, they are the focus of increasingly strict regulatory controls internationally and nationally. Worldwide agreements such as the 1992 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and its extension the Kyoto Protocol commit signatories to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and banning the worst performing gases. The agreements seek to shift use to low impact refrigerants over time and so provide a timescale for the phasing out of more potent refrigerants because the use of the gases is widespread and key to industries across developed and developing countries.

BREEAM seeks to support this agenda and promote more rapid change by creating market value for developments with reduced impact refrigerants by limiting the volume or weight of gases used, their potential impact, and for specifying systems which detect and control leakage of gas to the atmosphere.