The BRE Green Guide is a publication, providing generic guidance for specifiers, designers and their clients on the relative environmental impacts of over 250 elemental specifications for all types of different building materials.

Environmental ratings of these specifications are known as ‘ecopoints’ and are based on the Life Cycle Assessment using Environmental Profiles methodology. The Environmental profiles allow designers to demand reliable and comparable environmental information about competing building materials, allowing suppliers to present reliable information regarding their products. The profile takes into account all aspects of assessing the environmental effects of building materials over their entire life cycle, including: their extraction, processing, use and maintenance, and their eventual disposal. The ecopoints can be calculated and tallied depending on these specifications, and then attributed to each material – the lower the score, the more environmentally friendly the product.

Manufacturers can now view their certified Environmental Profiles which subsequently allow their products to be compared to the generic profiles (available at www.bre.co.uk/envprofiles.

In regards to the lime industry, BRE have produced the following ecopoint scores for Ground, quicklime, Lump quicklime and Hydrated quicklime products:

Overall, lime products are becoming more environmentally friendly as their ecopoint values decrease over time. This is a trend the lime industry and BLA will strive to maintain and improve in the future.