FSF releases first technical guidance document

The Fire Sector Federation has released a document on Fire Safety and Sustainability in Building Design, the first document to be developed by the organisation’s Technical Guidance Workstream.

The document aims to encourage all those involved in the specification, planning, design and construction of fire safety in new buildings to think more widely than health and safety alone. Its intention is to help people to consider how to make a building sustainable in the face of fire and promote a low environmental impact.

Fire Safety and Sustainability in Building Design explains that the ability of a building to avoid disproportionate damage in the event of a fire should be taken into account when considering its capacity to be sustainable and maintain a low environmental impact.

Intended as a voluntary guide, the document is based on the principle that to be described as ‘sustainable against fire’, the constructed building must be able to demonstrate that, if it is involved in fire, it will have a lower environmental, economic and social impact than would have been the case if it had observed only mandatory fire safety standards. It recommends 12 best practice processes that should be followed to ensure sustainability against fire.

Explaining the philosophy of the document Workstream Chair Dave Sibert comments:

“The Technical Guidance Workstream is pleased to release this document to the wider community. Its aim is to help building design go beyond life safety measures and to consider life safety and the environment.

“While, a number of publications exist that give recommendations that go further than minimum fire safety standards, the purpose of this document is to distil some of those recommendations into a single publication to assist those who wish to contribute to sustainability through best practice in the fire safety design procedure.

“It is hoped that the recommendations contained within the document will form the basis of a new fire safety rating within the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) rating system for buildings”

The document is available for free download from http://firesectorfederation.co.uk/news/post.php?s=2014-07-11-fsf-releases-first-guidance-document

Reader enquiries:  

Fire Sector Federation, London Road, Moreton in Marsh, Gloucestershire GL56 0RH; www.firesectorfederation.co.uk;  Tel: +44 (0)1608 812543; Email: admin@firesectorfederation.co.uk

Published July 2014