A SKA rating is an environmental assessment method, benchmark and standard for non-domestic fitouts, led and owned by RICS (The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors). It was originally launched by Skansen as a USP in 2005, but has since been adopted by RICS and now owned and run by them.
If a project team is interested in fitting out a space in an environmentally-friendly way, they can use the SKA rating method to:
The rating is an excellent fitout assessment tool that helps landlords and tenants. Fitouts are assessed via an online tool against 104 good sustainability practice measures, across eight key impact areas: pollution, energy, water, transport, waste, materials, wellbeing and project delivery. The outcome is a rating of either bronze, silver or gold, and a percentage. The process is broken into three stages:
In the first stage, the measures and issues in scope are identified. The client then can prioritise which ones they would like to achieve, and make a decision(after weighing up the design, cost, programme and benefit factors) and add them into the project's scope of works. This will set the standards for how the project is delivered in terms of waste and energy in use etc. Then if the specification demonstrates that the measures are likely to be achieved, they will be reflected in the indicative rating.
Throughout the construction period of the fitout, evidence from O&M manuals and other sources will need to be gathered to prove that what is being delivered is what was specified, and that the performance and waste benchmarks have been achieved.
The final stage is an opportunity to review how well a fitout has performed in use a year after completion, against its original brief.
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