No matter what your starting point a Ska Rating will enable you to measure 100% of the environmental performance of an office fit-out. Since Ska Rating does not consider the base build it measures only what you do to add value to your property.
Ska comprises 99 good practice measures across Energy & CO2, Waste, Water, Pollution, Transport, Materials and Wellbeing. E.g. when wooden flooring is stripped out it should be sent for re-use to a salvage yard instead to landfill. For a complete list of measures refer to the Good Practice Guidance section
Each good practice measure is explained in a datasheet explaining the criteria that need to be achieved, the rationale behind the measure and guidance on how to achieve it. Because each fit out project is unique in terms of employers' requirements, the building/ site and scope of works, Ska Rating scores the project on basis only of those measures that are relevant to the project. These are called 'Measures In Scope'. Typically between 30 and 60 measures are likely to apply to most projects. The score is ranked in 3 thresholds Gold, Silver and Bronze. These thresholds are reached by achieving 75%, 50% or 25%, respectively, of the measures in scope.
Because some measures are more important from a sustainability perspective the measures are ranked from 1 to 99, (1 is the highest and 99 the lowest). To ensure that teams do not just target the easiest measures, the project has to achieve a number of the highest ranked measures in scope in order to score; theses are known as Gateway Measures.
As with any fit out project the Ska assessment process is broken into three stages:
Design / Planning At this stage we identify the measures and issues in scope. Once the Measures in Scope are identified the client has the opportunity to prioritise which measures they want to achieve and make a decision against design, cost, programme and benefit, and add them into the scope of works for the project. This will also set the environmental performance standards for how the project is delivered, in terms of waste and energy in use etc. Then if the specification demonstrates that these measures are likely to be achieved they will be reflected in an indicative rating.
Delivery / Construction. This involves the gathering of evidence from O&M manuals and other sources to prove that what has been specified has actually been delivered and that the performance and waste benchmarks have been achieved.
Post-Occupancy Assessment. Finally there is the option to review how well a fit out has performed in use against its original brief from a year after completion.