Home Quality Mark rebrands to BREEAM

It’s been confirmed by the Building Research Establishment (BRE) that their Home Quality Mark assessment is being rebranded to bring it in line with the rest of the BREEAM family.

It’s new name isn’t as catchy – BREEAM UK New Construction Residential – but the premise of the standard remains the same.

From this... the Home Quality Mark logo

To this... the more familiar branding of a BREEAM UK assessment

They’ve also made a few changes to the credit scoring system. But first:

What is the Home Quality Mark?

The BRE created the Home Quality Mark (HQM) after the Cameron coalition Government scrapped for Code for Sustainable Homes assessment (CSH) in 2015.

CSH was a voluntary sustainability standard that developers could choose to opt in to, although it was most commonly used by local planning authorities to set higher efficiency standards than Building Regulations.

In CSH, you scored credits for achieving certain goals, and were awarded a rating from 1-6 stars. The credits were given for all kinds of reasons, from reduced energy use to including cycle stores; having a waste management plan to commissioning ecological surveys.

After the Government removed backing for the scheme, developers were no longer obliged to continue with CSH assessments (although, sites in Wales that had started with CSH had to see it through to the end of construction).

BRE then created the Home Quality Mark (HQM) which was both similar and different to CSH.

It was a new credit-based sustainability assessment for new dwellings, but HQM placed more focus on the social aspects of housebuilding, awarding a larger number of credits to homes that had been designed to support the health and wellbeing of occupants. It also took a more holistic view on the way we build homes, with more focus on topics like circular economy.

But HQM hit a hurdle that stopped it from ever becoming a mainstream approach: It was totally voluntary. Local Planning Authorities were not allowed to use HQM targets as a planning condition for improved sustainability measures.

After a few years, some councils started testing the water by requesting HQM standards, claiming it fitted nicely with their aspirations to fight the Climate Emergency.

This announcement of a rebrand makes sense, as HQM and BREEAM have a lot of common threads.

They’re both created by the BRE, they both target the sustainability of buildings, and they both award credits for meeting targets. The only differences are that BREEAM doesn’t cover new-build dwellings, and HQM does, and BREEAM is a worldwide-recognised standard, and HQM isn’t.

So now, in 2025, the latest edition of HQM has been brought in line with the rest of the BREEAM schemes.

BREEAM UK New Construction Residential is still a voluntary standard, but expect to see it appearing in more Local Plans in the near future. Planning officers are more familiar to the 'BREEAM' brand, and will be keen to take advantage of it to ensure new housing estates on their patch are meeting higher levels of sustainability good practice.

The name change now gives the scheme international recognition, but the key principals remain the same – it’s an assessment that prioritises environmental, social and economic values for newly built homes, creating buildings that are resilient, efficient and futureproofed for the UK's net-zero future.