Author Archives: martin brown

Plans A and B – changing the sustainability debate?

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Yesterday may well be remembered as a significant milestone in the world of sustainability with two major events: Marks and Spencers celebrated their Plan A with Al Gore and others, meanwhile Richard Branson was part of a global team that launched Plan B.

And there was  much relevance for the built environment and construction sectors, on carbon, supply chain management, social responsibility and on the urgency to change, away from business as usual. Now.

It was also a significant milestone for social media – in particular twitter, with so much of the events being shared, enabling many around the world, like me, to listen in, share key messages and comment. (Hashtags #PlanB and #PlanA2013 – see Storify links below))

If ever there was a reason for built environment organisations committed to sustainability to have a presence on twitter – it was yesterday.

Despite some of the contradictory language – “Plan A because there is no Plan B” and “We need a Plan B because Plan A isn’t working” – the two should definitely be seen as complimentary.

Many, like myself have seen and blogged on the complimentary messages from the two events, for example the UKGBC opinion article The day the debate changed: Plan A or Plan B and the article by Eddie 

There was so much information and comment shared during the day, I have captured the tweets on to storify for later reading and digesting. The storify records are raw tweets so I can go back and read, but please read and be inspired. As I re-read them I will tidy up to curate a better stori-fy.

Plan A : raw tweets from Marks and Spencers Plan A Conference 2013

Plan B – raw tweets from the launch of Plan B – a global conversation and new sustainable business era

Living Building Challenge Infographic

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Spotted this excellent infographic explaining the Living Building Challenge recently covered on Treehugger

“The Living Building Challenge is the toughest green standard out there, but it is seriously gaining traction as people get to understand it”

Lloyd Alter writes “Skanska prepared what they call an infographic to help explain the Living Building Challenge. It’s not really; it is more like a Powerpoint presentation glued together, light on non-verifiable numbers, heavy on written content. It is the most concise summary of the LBC that I have seen yet”

Skanska_Living_Building_Final.jpg.492x0_q85_crop-smartWe are currently preparing the fist UK Living Building Challenge newsletter with exciting news, events, workshops, client interest and possibly the first UK registered LBC project!  To ensure you receive a copy follow @UK_LBC on twitter, leave a comment here or email us.

Inspired by Biomimicry

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I participated in a short, sharp but highly inspirational #biomimicry tweetchat last night, hosted by TreeHugger with questions fielded by Janine Benyus

“Every design guideline that we need to plan the future already exists … in the bottomland hardwood forest and the tall grass prairie … Go outside. Quiet your cleverness. Listen to the lessons of the natives.”

Janine Benyus, Co-Founder, Biomimicry 3.8

download

TreeHugger have posted a useful record of the event, but there was so much (more) information, links and references shared during the chat I captured more of the tweetchat on a storify here:

Inspired by Biomimicry #biomimicry2013 Storify – Salient tweets links and comments from the whirlwind tweetchat hosted by Treehugger with Janine Benyus

Enjoy

Improvement through PAS 91

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PAS 91 has recently been updated to align with the Government Construction Strategy.

PAS91-CoverHere are some of my thoughts on recently providing PAS91 support (training events, webinars and live bid support)

As with all bidding the trick is to:

 “delight the client to attain maximum scores and score higher than your competitors”

Easy?

PAS 91 used properly could significantly improve the SME contracting sector, on topics such as Diversity, Quality Management, Environmental Management and of course Building Information Modelling.

The scoring I have seen to date heavily favours certification – to ISO 9001, ISO1400 and PAS1192. Providing these certificates scores full marks, and exempts the bidder from completing a large number of questions in an attempt to describe arrangements that meet the standards, and only score eg 75% of available scores. (in one case up to 12 sides of A4 are expected!)

A contractor without these standards in place are already scoring less than those who have, before they start to articulate their practices.

It makes attaining these accreditations a no brainer, whilst of course providing the benefits of accreditation. From a clients PAS91 perspective it allows further in depth questions in the Specific Questions Module, for eg delivering value, evidence of localism, sustainable material procurement.

The BIM optional module in PAS 91 contains some tough questions, but also provides a useful guide as to what bidders should be preparing for.

Top tips for maximising PAS 91 points:

  • Get a (free) copy of PAS 91
  • Practice, prepare and fine tune  your responses, get them internally and independently checked.
  • Ensure you provide complete responses to all parts of the questions
  • Evidence, Evidence Evidence – use real evidence (think business storytelling) to support.
  • Be consistent between what you say in the bid, demonstrate on your projects and say on your website and or social media (watch those linkedin profiles!)

We will be providing further training, public and one to one webinars, and live PAS 91 consultancy support over the coming months. Do get in touch 

We are also developing 91Cloud a PAS91 portal due to launch soon – watch this space

Also in addition in conjunction with ibepartnership we have developed a low cast but high value package for achieving ISO 14001 for smaller SME contracting organisations. Again, please do get in touch 

A sustainable, purpose-driven Green Deal?

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sb13live-logoThere is a real buzz emerging from Sustainable Brands annual conference in San Diego focusing on the progress purpose-driven brands are having in moving the sustainability agenda. The strap line theme for this years event is from Revolution to Renaissance, and explores the positive sustainability shifts currently taking place where business and society meet.

The event has wide coverage via Livestream feed and a vibrant twitter stream at #SB13con

‘Research shows that brands have failed to align themselves with changes in society’  

From the event, there are significant articles from Jo Confino at Guardian Sustainable Business (one of the event platinum sponsors), in particular – Consumers believe brands can have positive impact but are failing to do so and Can brands help unlock the power of citizens to change the world? and well worth a read. 

Tuning into #SB13, following the livestream coverage, sharing tweets thoughts with others and reading the Guardian articles, it strikes me the UK Green Deal programme is a prime platform where purpose driven material and equipment suppliers could make a huge impact. Could green deal product suppliers move away from  traditional supply and sales driven profit routes and focus on a purpose of reducing fuel poverty, improving wellbeing and influencing the greendeal consumer?

Could the Kingfisher group be the first to move into this space and pioneer a ‘net positive’ and purpose-driven approach to Green Deal? Nick Folland, the company’s group corporate affairs director thinks so:

The Kingfisher of the future could be as much about helping people make, mend and repair things than selling them kit. “We’re going to go out into communities and teach these things, and [help them be] more self-sustaining.”

Kingfisher’s plan to put ‘net positive’ into practice

One of the notable themes from SB13 is the need for product brands to connect, collaborate and scale fast,  filling the sustainability gaps that governments at present can not.

What a different green deal we could have!

Related: More than just a Green Deal presentation via martin brown

A tipping point for sustainability

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Could this be one of the key important concept diagrams for sustainability and environmental impact?

Snapseed‘Restorative sustainability’ in one simple graphic.

This brilliant  slide came to my attention via a @melanieloftus tweeted picture  taken during Jason McLennan’s presentation, Mind the Gap at the Living Futures conference, positioning Living Building Challenge beyond LEED. 

Reflecting on this simple model, we can visualise the impact of our current built environment sustainability approaches – are they just doing less bad, or really doing more good and making a restorative, positive contribution?

And importantly we can visualise that tipping point for sustainability, from less bad to more good.

The urgency for reconsidering ‘sustainability’ was emphasised in the recent report State of the World 2013: Is Sustainability Still Possible? The term sustainable has become essentially sustainababble, at best indicating a practice or product slightly less damaging than the conventional alternative.

Is it time to abandon the sustainability concept altogether, or can we find an accurate way to measure sustainability?

The Living Building Challenge, as a philosophy, an advocacy and assessment scheme has real significance. It enables us to cross the sustainability rubicon, setting a vision for a future built environment and encouraging owners, designers, constructors, operators and users to track towards it. As commented on the opening of the Bullitt Centre in Seattle a LBC accreditation hopeful, such approaches are driving a wedge into the future so others can see whats possible.

I feel honoured to be a Living Building UK Ambassador, spreading the message of the Challenge as fresh sustainability thinking into the UK built environment agenda.

For more information and planned events for the Challenge in the UK , check out our presentation to Green Build Expo, visit the Living Building website,  follow us on @UK_LBC on twitter or say hi via email. (We even have a facebook page to like!)

Related Post: Have we picked the low hanging fruit of Sustainable Construction?

Sustainable futures require collective power of unconventional partnerships

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mandelbrot

Early today I came across this excellent quote* from Hannah Jones, Nike’s global head of sustainability and innovation:

“We believe that the innovations required to create the future won’t come from a single source. Not from science. Not from technology. Not from governments. Not from business. But from all of us. We must harness the collective power of unconventional partnerships to dramatically redefine the way we thrive in the future.”

Just the thinking and attitude we need for a ‘sustainable’ built environment, based on unconventional collaborative working, driving our conversations towards a future that is sustainable on economic, social and environmental value levels. In the way we operate, address our impacts and importantly in the products and services we deliver.

*Quote contained in the Guardian Sust Biz article Can systems experts create scale and speed in sustainability?

Feel no guilt in laughter …

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Feel no guilt in laughter, I know how much you care.
Feel no sorrow in a smile that I am  not there to share.
You cannot grieve forever; I would not want you to.
I hope that you could carry on the way you always do.
So, talk about the good times and the way you showed you cared,
The days we spent together, all the happiness we shared.
Let memories surround you, a word someone may say
Will suddenly recapture a time, an hour, a day,
That brings me back as clearly as though I were still there,
And fills you with the feeling that I am always near.
For if you keep those moments, we will never be apart
And I will live forever locked safely within your heart.
 

The very moving poem read at Dad’s funeral.

John Norris Brown 1931-2013

RIP Dad, my inspiration, my hero

my shared links over the last week (May 12th)

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Experimenting with a round up of key links shared via twitter over last few days, brought together by Rebel Mouse.

[rebelmouse sitename =”martinbrown/Latest”]

Architects and Green Deal: greater ability to improve public health than medical professionals

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‘Architects have a greater ability to improve public health than medical professionals’

A provocative statement  made by physician Dr. Claudia Miller, assistant dean at the University of Texas School of Medicine, at a recent  healthy building materials panel moderated and blogged by Kirk Teske on his Point of View blog.

The panel* made a unanimous call for cooperation and transparency from building product manufacturers … the type of collaborative action our industry needs to shift the building materials paradigm from translucent to transparent, and from toxic to healthy

Here in the UK we are seeing the Green Deal  gearing up, which, putting aside the programmes finance and operational uncertainty, has a huge potential to improve public health and NHS health costs. A benefit not addressed or recognised to date. (Particularly given the UK’s lowest ranking across European Countries for health and housing related issues)

How would Green Deal look, and what additional health benefits would it provide, if the scheme embodied Living Building Challenge’s Red List Materials? Seems a no brainer to me.

Likewise the recently announced PF2 Education Funding Agency programme for schools in relation to educational building occupant health.

Slide1

Google may be the influential game changer, globally they are opening 40,000 square feet of office space a week (including a new UK HQ in London).  And none of those workplaces will use any of the materials on the red list developed by the Living Building Challenge. Google’s decision stems from two principles, a focus on health and vitality of its employees and cost of healthcare

The UK Collaborative for Living Building Challenge was launched in April and is currently developing an UK overlay for the standard. Get in touch for more information.

 
 
Panel:
Dr. Claudia Miller, an assistant dean at the University of Texas School of Medicine,
Jason McClennan, founder creator of the Living Building Challenge and CEO of International Living Future Institute; 
Bill Walsh, executive director of the Healthy Building Network ,
Howard Williams, vice president at Construction Specialties, a global building materials supplier.