Monthly Archives: December 2007

Sustainability Code for non domestic buildings

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Following the Code for housing which seems to be setting the sustaintainbility agenda the industry, the UKGBC UK Green Building Council today launched a report on behalf of the government that starts to set out an agenda for acheiving zero carbon non-domestic buildings by 2020
From the press release at UKGBC:

Key findings in the report are as follows:

1)   It IS possible to reduce carbon emissions from energy use down to zero in the majority of new non-domestic buildings, as long as on-site, near-site and off-site renewable solutions are employed

2)   There is a cost associated with building to zero carbon. Cost varies widely with both the form and the use of the building. However, preliminary modeling suggest that the premium could range from over 30% down to as low as 5 or 10% of current baseline costs.

3)   A challenging yet achievable time-frame for achieving zero carbon new non-domestic buildings along the lines set for housing is needed. With a trajectory in place similar to that adopted for the Code for Sustainable Homes, then a deadline of 2020 could be adopted.

Will this report, like the code for housing and BREEAM will now shape the direction for construction and the built environment for the next decade.  As fellow blogger Phil over at Zero-Champion points out in his review of this report – a move from rhetoric to reality.

My initial thoughts on the costs associated with moving to carbon zero is that the ‘preliminary modeling’ figures are similar to the figures used to describe the ‘waste’ in the industry, (ie total waste or muda. – time, costs, lack of integration, non value-adding,  unproductive activities, reworking, delays, as well as material waste).

Therefore a renewed drive on business improvement and collaborative working would pay for zero carbon buildings and facilities.  (this is to some degree supported in the Strategy for Sustainable Construction which includes the Strategic Forums target for an integrated industry to support a sustainable one)

I shall be returning to this  with further posts when I have digested the report

Merton Rule ‘plus’ in new planning policy statement

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The Guardian reports today that the Merton rule has now been embedded into a new planning policy statement.

The government will today publish a new planning policy designed to boost the use of renewable energy and community heating schemes in new buildings as it gears up for the introduction of carbon-free homes from 2016 … requiring new commercial buildings to produce at least 10% of their energy from on-site renewables.

So another target milestone for the industry looms.  However in the (rising) scale of things only 10% from renewables by 2016 seems paltry.

anatomy of a diaster – an analysis

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Mentioned a number of times on this blog the Clissold Leisure center has been analysed by on the Building online site. Architect Stephen Hodder tells Mark Leftly his side of the story.  A great lesson for all here.

bd online event

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bd virtual careers and exhibition event could well be a significant milestone for use of virtual platforms for events . We must make much more use of online conferencing and virtual meetings. For those of us not in the city it is a problem to attend conferences, exhibitions and particularly short mid day events. Well done bd

The virtual tour gives the impression of Second Life, but Continue reading →

environmental podcasts

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Autodesk have (or are) sponsoring a very informative series of podcasts, the (e2 the Economies of being Environmentally Conscious), on environmental issues. there are 6 podcasts:

Chapter 1: Paving the Way
Chapter 2: Energy for a Developing World
Chapter 3: Harvesting the Wind
Chapter 4: Growing Energy
Chapter 5: State of Resolve
Chapter 6: Coal & Nuclear: Problem or Solution?

Interesting to note that the series is also being broadcast across the US on the PBS (Public Broadcasting Service). I am now wondering Continue reading →

poor building performance fuels coal demand – Ffos-y-fran

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Coal is back in the news today … from the Guardian:

Around 30 climate activists and local residents this morning took mass direct action to prevent excavation work on Britain’s biggest ever open-cast coal mine at Ffos-y-fran in South Wales, (… timed to coincide with the Bali conference)

Climate protester, Tim Helweg-Larsen, said: “Coal is the filthiest fuel known to man and projects like this mine could destroy all our chances of tackling global warming. The battle over this hilltop in Wales is a fight for the stability of the global climate and it epitomises this government’s hypocrisy on climate change.”

When burned, this amount of coal will emit more than 30m tonnes of carbon dioxide.

More than 10,000 local people petitioned against the pit, the edge of which will be just 36 metres from people’s homes.

Merthyr resident, Leon Stanfield, said: “We’ve protested this mine in all the conventional ways. Now we’re turning to direct action as a last resort. This project is wrecking both the local and the global environment and is putting the health of our community and its children at risk.”

Miller Argent says it appreciates the concerns expressed by some (sic) local residents. Once works are commenced it said it would be able to ensure that the concerns of the local community are met.

(MillerArgents newsletter to keep people up to date with progress seems to have stalled at Issue 01 back in the Summer – which greenwash sin is this I wonder?)

But on a wider issue: Continue reading →

on tranisition towns – community based fm in action

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I read the recent Ecologist article on Transition Totnes with great interest and delved deeper into understanding the transition movement, an initiative that responds to the twin challenges of Peak Oil and Climate Change.

Best described from the Transition Wiki as:

A Transition Initiative is a community that is unleashing its own latent collective genius to look Peak Oil and Climate Change squarely in the eye and to discover and implement ways to address this BIG question:

“for all those aspects of life that this community needs in order to sustain itself and thrive, how do we significantly increase resilience (to mitigate the effects of Peak Oil) and drastically reduce carbon emissions (to mitigate the effects of Climate Change)?”

As the Ecologist article illustrates, and the initiative wiki demonstrates this movement could have a significant effect on the built assets and facilities within a community and how they are used, and ‘greened’ .

Yet more importantly Transition Towns can be seen as a great example of Community Based Facilities Management (CbFM) and community collaborative working  in action.

Incidentally the transition towns site lists some 25 towns or communities within the initiative to date – is yours there?

spot the greenwashing sins

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Greenwashing is a common theme on this blog and a topic I keep an igoogle eye on.  Along with carbon offsetting, green-washing can be seen as unnecessary distractors, distracting energy and focus away from the real task in hand of sustainability and ‘greening’ the built environment industries.

It was then good to note a recent report from TerraChoice,  Six Sins of Greenwashing.

The research looked at 1,018 products making 1,753 claims. And although the products studied included a wide range of offerings, from air fresheners to appliances, televisions to toothpaste, the conclusions are typical of all green advertising.  Worryingly of those products, all but one made claims that are either demonstrably false or that risk misleading intended audiences.

The sins provide a good guide to ‘testing’ claims made by companies and or advertisements.

Happy spotting.   In fact isite will start a rogues gallery of greenwash  sins, relevant to the built environment industry – watch this space for a related blog space.  In the meantime if you spot any blatant greenwash – please leave details in the comments below.

The sins:

Sin of the Hidden Trade-Off--(made by 57 percent of all environmental claims examined)  claims that suggest a product or company is “green” based on a single environmental attribute (the recycled content of paper, for example)
Sin of No Proof (26%)–any claim that couldn’t be substantiated by easily accessible supporting information, or by a reliable third-party certification.

Sin of Vagueness (11 %)–any claim that is so poorly defined or broad that its real meaning is likely to be misunderstood by the intended consumer, such as “chemical free” or “all natural.”

Sin of Irrelevance (4 %)–claims that may be truthful but are unimportant and unhelpful for consumers, such as CFC-free products, since ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons have been outlawed since the late 1980s.

Sin of Lesser of Two Evils (1%)–environmental claims that may be true, but that risk distracting the consumer from the greater environmental impacts of the category as a whole, such as organic cigarettes.

Sin of Fibbing (<1%)- claims that are simply false, typically by misusing or misrepresenting certification by an independent authority, when no such certification had been made.

Greenwash Definition: Greenwash  is a term that is used to describe the actions of a company, government, or other organization which advertises positive environmental practices while acting in the opposite way.

The term is generally used when significantly more money or time has been spent advertising being green , rather than spending resources on environmentally sound practices. This is often portrayed by changing the name or label of a product, to give the feeling of nature, for example putting an image of a forest on a bottle of harmful chemicals.Links:

Terrachoice

Joel Makower 

Triple Bottom Line 

offsetting problems

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Financial problems in the mysterious (and distracting) world of carbon offsetting reported in todays Guardian

The fledgling carbon-offset market was undermined yesterday when AgCert International, a producer and seller of certified emission reductions (CERs), said a key deal had collapsed leaving it with an overhang of uncovered liabilities … more

framework award winners

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Hampshire county council picked up the Innovation and progress, finance and procurement award in this years Guardian Public Services Awards.   As reported in last the award supplement last wednesday, the council are gearing up the framework approach to cover £3bn of construction across all public services in Hampshire, with predicted savings of over £40m.

The framework pre-approves contractors regionally, claims to halve lead in times and reduce advertising and procurement costs and deals with the sustainability approach of encouraging the use of more local contractors.

Winner: Hampshire County Council on behalf of the South East Centre of Excellence (SECE)
On behalf of SECE, Hampshire County Council has pioneered a new approach to procuring and managing this work. The SECE Major Framework is about streamlining procurement processes and delivering improved performance and efficiencies. It is also about ambition, innovation, and collaboration.