# Scoring
To 'pass' BESS requires all of the following:
- A project score of 50% or higher
- Meeting or exceeding all the minimum category scores
- Achieving any mandatory credits for the project
The project sidebar provides information to show whether the minimum requirements have been met at the project, category, and credit levels.
# Project score
The overall project score is a percentage between 0 - 100%. The project score is shown at the top of the sidebar and updates as information is entered into the tool.
- ‘Best practice’ is defined as an overall score of 50% or higher.
- ‘Excellence’ is defined as an overall score of 70% or higher.
The Innovation category is only available for projects scoring at least 50% across the other categories.
# Category score
Each BESS category score is a percentage between 0-100%, and each category has a weighting toward the overall project score.
# Category weightings
The category weightings are the same for all projects using the same BESS engine. For instance, a BESS-9 project for a townhouse development has the same category weightings as an industrial development or a childcare centre.
Check the Tool Notes for the relevant BESS engine for the category weightings.
The category weightings are the same for all engines up to BESS-8, however in BESS-9, Water and Stormwater were combined to a new category, 'Integrated Water Management', and the category weightings were adjusted accordingly.
# Minimum category score
Some categories in BESS have a minimum required category score. You can find this:
On the category page
When you hover over the icon next to the category score
# Credit score
Each BESS credit score is a percentage between 0-100%, and each credit has a weighting toward the category score. The credit weightings will be different for different types of projects using the same BESS engine. This is because a different number and combination of credits will apply for each project.
# Mandatory credits
Mandatory credits depend on the project type, as this influences which credits are applicable. For instance:
- IWM 1.1 Potable Water Use and IWM 2.1 Stormwater Treatment are mandatory credits for all projects.
- IEQ 1.4 Daylight Access - Non-Residential and IEQ 2.3 Ventilation - Non-Residential are mandatory credits for projects with non-residential spaces. These credits will not appear in BESS for projects without non-residential spaces.
# Examples
Here are some examples of BESS projects showing what BESS displays to the user when minimum requirements are achieved or not achieved.
Example 1
- This project has not met the minimum requirements for Operational Energy.
- The category score > of 50% has not been achieved, and the mandatory credit 1.2 has also not been achieved.
- The score (bar graph) for Operational Energy shows as orange and there is an orange exclamation mark against the category to show something has not been achieved.
- Hovering over the exclamation mark displays information about what is required to get a 'green tick'.
Example 2
- This project has met the minimum requirements for IWM - achieving the two mandatory credits, 1.1 and 2.1.
- The score (bar graph) for IWM shows as teal and there is a green tick against the category to show everything has been achieved.
- Clicking on the green tick displays information about what was required to achieve it.
Example 3
In this project, IWM 1.1 Potable Water Use has not been achieved.
IWM2.1 Stormwater Treatment is also a mandatory credit. This credit has been achieved.
The project sidebar shows an orange exclamation mark against IWM1.1 and a green tick against IWM2.1.
IWM3.1 Water Efficient Landscaping is not a mandatory credit, so this shows neither an exclamation mark or a tick.
- The IWM category page shows an orange 0% score with an exclamation mark for IWM1.1 and a green 100% score with a tick for IWM2.1.
- In this case we can also see that IWM1.1 is labelled 'not answered', which gives us some more information about why is it not achieved, i.e. that the information hasn't been entered yet.
