About the BPN
Many existing, new and retro-fitted buildings exhibit large gaps between design aspirations and in-use performance. To meet policy objectives and meet the needs of building owners and occupants, in-use performance needs to improve rapidly and radically.
While many people are now aware of performance gaps for energy use and CO2 emissions, fewer people are aware that issues are also evident in technical performance, occupant satisfaction, operating costs, environmental impact and importantly the health of the occupants.
Data is the key to understanding whether we are making the right choices throughout the lifecycle of the building. The UK suffers from a disjointed building performance evaluation sector, where data are inaccessible, study methods are not clear or shared, and decisions are often made on poor or limited data.
As a direct result of these issues, the Building Performance Network (BPN) was established.
The BPN has the following key objectives:
- Bring people together with an interest in building performance
- Understand how building performance data is collected and analysed to ensure members have reliable data on which to base their decisions
- Move forward the practice of building performance evaluation to make it accurate and usable for the sector
- Share and make members aware of a wide range of studies undertaken in the UK and create a data-sharing platform to move the building performance agenda forward
- Use data to influence change in policy, procurement and practice
The ambition is to focus on how to “do” performance measurement and how to share and access data that would in turn support and help others.
BPN and the Good Homes Alliance
Since January 2023, BPN has been hosted by the Good Homes Alliance.
The Good Homes Alliance is a non-profit community interest company with over 125 member organisations from across the built environment industry who seek to go beyond business as usualand collaborate to deliver homes fit for the 21st century.
This transition aims to support the BPN’s current activities but importantly will enable the 100+ GHA members and BPN members to network and collaborate more closely. The GHA’s membership includes architects, developers, housing associations, local authorities, urban designers, consultants, manufacturers, engineers, building performance experts, and more.
This move allows the benefits of BPE to be promoted to a greater audience and increase the impact when lobbying for BPE to be included within Government regulations, procurement and funding programmes.
How to join
Organisations interested in joining BPN should apply for Standard, Leader or BPE Pioneer Network membership as part of the GHA.
BPE Pioneer Network membership offers similar benefits to the GHA’s other networks (Vanguard, Pathfinder, Net Zero Developer Network) but with particular opportunities for organisations at the forefront of building performance evaluation work in the UK. See here for more information and apply for membership on the GHA website.
Who is involved
The BPN programme is managed by the Good Homes Alliance team, namely Julian Brooks (Programmes Director) and Richard Broad (Projects & Comms Manager). The BPE lead on the GHA board is Tom Dollard (GHA Vice-chair and Partner – Sustainability and Innovation at Pollard Thomas Edwards).
If you have any queries about the BPN, please in the first instance contact richard@goodhomes.org.uk.