built for
Operation Chastise (the Dambusters' Raid), Building Research Establishment 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 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 has an archive and some account of its history online. In the 1950s, BRE's applied research was a pioneer in energy efficiency of buildings and their use (such as curtaining windows and draught reduction). It also embraced collaborative research. 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 Forest Products Research Laboratory in
Princes Risborough, it was given
executive agency status in 1990, before being
privatised by the
Department of the Environment on 19 March 1997. In 1990, BRE launched the sustainability assessment method BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method). Designed to benchmark and improve the environmental performance of buildings, BREEAM is widely regarded as the world’s longest-established system of its kind. As of January 2025 more than 2.9 million assets had registered for assessment under the scheme. From 1 January 2013, BRE took over the management of the UK and Ireland chapter of
BuildingSMART. In 2017, this responsibility was passed to the UK BIM Alliance (now known as Nima). In August 2016,
Constructing Excellence merged with BRE, with BRE undertaking to maintain the CE's brands and functions. Since the
Grenfell Tower fire in June 2017, BRE has been criticised for holding poor fire safety standards, all the while via reviewing cases like that of Grenfell. The final (phase 2) report of the
Grenfell Tower Inquiry, published in September 2024, was critical of BRE suggesting its once recognised international status as a leader in fire safety had been compromised, talking of a "desire to put BRE's status in the industry and commercial position ahead of considerations of public safety." Members of the
House of Lords called for BRE to be stripped of its responsibility to certify
modern methods of construction, following the Grenfell Inquiry criticism. BRE defended its role, rejected claims it was not impartial and insisting its testing approach was robust. to lead a consortium to develop the Home Energy Model (HEM), a new approach for assessing the energy performance of new homes and for demonstrating compliance with energy efficiency and carbon-reduction requirements under the Future Homes Standard. HEM is also expected to underpin future Energy Performance Certificates and related policies. In 2025, BRE was re-appointed to continue its development., launched in 2024. The standard provides a common definition and methodology for assessing the carbon performance of buildings. BRE has contributed to the technical development and delivery of the English Housing Survey (and its predecessor, the English House Condition Survey) since the 1970s. The survey collects data on housing conditions, energy efficiency and household circumstances in England. BRE has also used survey data to produce analyses of housing condition, associated health impacts and estimated costs to the National Health Service, which are used by policymakers, researchers and industry. ==See also==