BREEAM commissioning: Man 04 and Man 05

What each credit covers, and the most common scoping error

A project that budgets Man 04 believing it covers seasonal testing discovers the mistake at the point where it can no longer be corrected. Seasonal testing is not in Man 04: it belongs to Man 05 Aftercare, over twelve months after occupation. This page sets out what each credit actually requires, and what has to be written into the works contracts to obtain it.

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Starting point

In France, the international scheme applies.

There is no French national scheme operator for BREEAM. A project certified in France therefore falls under International New Construction, not under a local adaptation.

The consequence is practical. Credit names, expected evidence and role terminology are those of the international manual. A specification written in French must keep the manual's wording: translating a credit name makes it untraceable for the assessor and complicates the assessment. We say the same thing about French criterion names on our comparison of certification requirements, and the rule cuts both ways.

Man 04, Commissioning and handover

Four parts, four separate requirements.

Each part is earned separately. A project can hold three of them and lose the fourth for a purely organisational reason.

  • Schedule and responsibilities. A commissioning programme and a division of responsibilities, with a commissioning monitor appointed to oversee delivery. This is a governance requirement: it does not ask for tests, it asks for the organisation that will make them possible.
  • Commissioning of the building services. The commissioning itself. For systems the manual treats as complex, a specialist commissioning manager must be appointed from design stage — not at the start of works. This is the most frequent cause of a lost credit, and a late appointment cannot be recovered.
  • Testing and inspection of the building fabric. Thermography, air permeability testing, or both depending on the case, with defects rectified before handover. It is not an inspection for the record: the credit assumes that what was found is corrected, and that the correction is traced.
  • Handover. Building user information and training for the occupier and the operator, with the documentation to support it.

On the number of credits, we hold to what we can source: four credits in version 6, with the structure retained in version 7 according to the change note published by the BRE. We do not quote a figure for version 7 or 7.1 without the manual in hand.

Man 05, Aftercare

Where seasonal testing actually lives.

This is the scoping error we see most often on BREEAM projects in France, and it is expensive because it is discovered late. Seasonal commissioning is not part of Man 04. It belongs to Man 05 Aftercare, a distinct credit covering the twelve months following occupation.

Man 05 covers aftercare support to the occupier, full-load and part-load testing, interviews with occupants, recommissioning, and post-occupancy evaluation. In other words, it covers everything that only becomes visible once the building is actually being used — and a contract that ends at handover covers none of it.

The practical consequence sits in the procurement, not on site. Seasonal testing requires a budget line and a team available long after delivery, which means the appointment must run beyond handover. Retro-fitting that into a contract that has already closed means procuring the work a second time. The phase structure of the assignment treats this as its fifth phase for the same reason, and LEED version 5 pushes further still, with a three-year monitoring commitment.

The BREEAM logic

Separating who installs from who commissions.

BREEAM's distinctive contribution is less about the volume of testing than about who does it. The scheme separates installation from commissioning, and expects the commissioning of complex systems to be led by someone appointed for that purpose, early, rather than by the installing contractor as an extension of their own works.

That principle is worth stating on a French project, because it does not follow naturally from the way trades are contracted here. A specification that simply requires the mechanical contractor to “carry out commissioning” satisfies neither the letter nor the intent of the credit, and the gap is only detected when the assessor asks who the specialist commissioning manager was and when they were appointed.

Other schemes take positions along the same axis without matching it: the German DGNB scheme requires a party that is neither designer nor contractor, and LEED version 5 removed the exemption that previously let a design or construction team member hold the role. Where independence is required, it has to be procured separately — a point we develop on the building commissioning page.

FAQ

Questions on BREEAM projects in France.

No, and this is the most frequent and most expensive scoping error on BREEAM projects. Seasonal commissioning belongs to Man 05 Aftercare, a separate credit covering the twelve months after occupation, alongside occupant interviews, recommissioning and post-occupancy evaluation. A contract that ends at handover covers none of it, and retro-fitting it means procuring the work a second time.
From design stage, for systems the manual treats as complex — not at the start of works. This is the single most common cause of a lost credit, and it cannot be recovered: a late appointment does not retroactively produce the design-stage involvement the credit requires. It is therefore a procurement decision taken long before anyone is thinking about commissioning.
No. There is no French national scheme operator for BREEAM, so a project certified in France falls under International New Construction and its wording. Translating “Man 04 Commissioning and handover” into a French specification makes the requirement untraceable for the assessor and complicates the assessment. Keep the manual wording and explain it alongside in French.
Not in the sense the credit intends. BREEAM separates installation from commissioning and expects complex systems to be commissioned by someone appointed for that purpose. A specification that simply asks the mechanical contractor to “carry out commissioning” satisfies neither the letter nor the intent, and the gap surfaces when the assessor asks who the specialist commissioning manager was and when they were appointed.

Go further

The rest of the commissioning material.

A project targeting BREEAM in France?

We check your works contracts against the credit wording, flag what is missing while it can still be added, and scope the appointment to cover Man 05 rather than stopping at handover.

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