LEED, BREEAM and WELL

If your building is certified, or working towards it, you will want a straight answer. Here it is.

The short answer

Adopting hives with us does not earn points under LEED, BREEAM or WELL — not for hives in our apiaries in Boeotia, and not for hives on your roof either. None of these systems has a credit for beehives, and we found none for a pollen analysis.

What each system says

• LEED. Pollinators appear only as native flowering plants on your own site (in LEED v5, the “Biodiverse Habitat” credit). Older versions had one off-site option: money given to a land trust or conservation organisation, not to a beekeeper. LEED v5 dropped it. There is no LEED credit for beehives, on site or off.
• BREEAM. The ecology credits concern the assessed site. Features off site count only within 2 km of the building, and only once the options on site are used up. Beehives are not on the list.
• WELL. No feature mentions bees. If your building runs WELL’s health-promotion programme, which asks for education sessions every quarter, our session can be offered as one of them. The WELL reviewer decides whether it counts.

Why we tell you this

You may read that beehives “earn LEED points”. The examples given are hives on the client’s own roof, and we found no published case of a LEED point awarded for beekeeping. If anyone promises you points, ask for the name of the credit.

What you can report instead

Training hours for your staff, a voluntary action described with evidence, and money spent with a small Greek producer. All of it goes into your sustainability report, not your building certificate. See ESG, SDG and GRI.

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