Author Archives: martin brown

Green Deal Needs a Radical Boost to Succeed, warns Federation of Master Builders

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Yesterdays, press release from the FMB illustrates the frustation developing within Green Deal and hindering preparation for Green Deal and addressing the requirements of PAS 2030 and Code of Practice.

These are the same frustrations I hear from green deal related workshops I am engaged in, on one hand their is promise of work, the biggest home and property improvement programme since the 2nd world war, and on the other hand far too much confusion. The result is that many contractors and installers who do the scope of measures to be covered by Green Deal are just not engaging, playing the green deal or not green deal waiting game.

Danger, is of course that when green deal does go live there will not be many accredited (PAS 2030 etc) contractors and installers available

FMB Press Release reads:

The Government’s Green Deal initiative to makes our homes more energy efficient is in danger of failing at the first hurdle unless it provides a range of additional incentives to encourage householders to take it up, warns the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) in its response to the Government’s Green Deal consultation, which closes on Wednesday (18th January 2012).

Brian Berry, Director of External Affairs at the FMB said:
“With rising energy bills there is an urgent need to improve the energy efficiency of our housing stock as it is far less energy efficient than that of our European neighbours’. However, householders will need to be convinced of the value of retrofitting their home particularly when the price is having a new charge attached to their electricity bill. The quickest and easiest way to create consumer demand would be to reduce VAT on Green Deal improvements or reduce Stamp Duty.”

Berry continued:
“Another concern is how local building companies will be able to access the Green Deal given that few, if any, will become recognized Green Deal Providers because of the onerous conditions attached to providing the finance packages. This is a lost opportunity as it is the local builder who is best placed to advise householders about energy efficient improvements when they are carrying out other home improvements or repairs.

Berry added:
“The Government has rightly tacked the need to eliminate rogue traders by insisting on the need to have Green Deal accredited installers. Local builders already have many of the key skills in place to carry out energy efficiency improvements but now they need an operational accreditation framework that enables them to demonstrate their skills and knowledge at the standard required. The Government’s delay in approving recognised competency schemes is not helpful and swift action is needed if the building industry is going to be ready for the launch in October. We know that the Green Deal has the potential to create some 65,000 new construction jobs which is why it is so important that we have the training courses ready at the earliest possible opportunity.”

Berry concluded:
“We want the Green Deal to be a success but it won’t be unless the Government considers seriously the need to introduce fiscal incentives for homeowners, creates a level playing field to enable local building companies to access the market, and ensures that training courses are quickly approved to accredit local builders.”

Green Deal – heading for failure or success?

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There has been a spate of interesting “Green Deal will fail articles” recently, for example

DECC research suggests Green Deal will flop from Business Green

Green deal suffers setback as loft insulations set to plummet from the Guardian

and on George Monbiot’s Blog: The green deal is a useless, middle-class subsidy

It is great that we debate the issues around green deal, in particular mechanics of funding and energy performance of building, and I must agree with Monbiot

“Even if we agree on nothing else, can we agree that a policy is not green if it discriminates against the poor?”

Based on this Greenest Government Ever track record to date who knows?

However, as I mentioned on my last blog  “Where Greendeal will succeed …” debate is good and there are some certainties emerging, like for example the Green Deal Code of Practice, and,  PAS 2030, at the moment a poorly crafted document but one that should put some control on cowboy builders, protect clients and improve the image of installation.

The arguments to date focus on domestic Green Deal, I await with interest for the same debates to kick off within the commercial and private sectors…

 

 

#GreenSkills a serious barrier

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The RAE (Royal Academy of Engineering) have today published their report:

Heat: Degrees of Comfort, Options for heating home in a low carbon economy. 

There is no possibility that the UK can meet its 2050 target for CO2 emissions without a fundamental change to the way our homes are heated, according to a report published today (12 January) by the Royal Academy of Engineering. Even with the most modern gas boilers and state-of-the art insulation, we cannot continue to heat so many homes by natural gas and still achieve an 80% cut in emissions as laid down in the Climate Change Act 2008.

Plumbers unprepared for move to energy-efficient homes, report warns (from the Guardian 12/01/12)

In addition to the technical options and considerations, throughout the report there are a number of important and timely comments around the skills issue for installation, AND, for behavioural operation, as the following extracts show:

… skills shortages will be a serious barrier to decarbonising heating unless addressed effectively

… behavioural aspects are very important. Studies in the UK and overseas tend
to reveal a variation of typically 3:1 between the upper and lower tails of the
energy use (between the 5% and 95% cases in the distribution) in technically
similar dwellings occupied by people from demographically similar
backgrounds. To make radical changes, it will therefore be essential to engage the occupiers.

… the lack of inter-discplinary work:

(A Cautionary Tale Case study): The initial problem they faced was finding a single contractor who would take responsibility for the whole installation including the GSHP, ground coils, underloor heating and the integration of the new system with their existing heating and DHW installations. Eventually, despite having contacted the Low Carbon Partnership and the Energy Savings Trust, they had to place separate contracts with a heat pump installer, a groundwork contractor, a plumber and an electrician for different parts of the work.

The work went ahead and a 16kW heat pump, 150m of slinkies, a thermostore tank, solar collectors, two underfloor heating coils and room thermostats were installed.

When the system was operational the householder was shocked to find the electricity bill increased from £30 per month to £250. After 18 months of high electricity consumption and many visits by the different companies involved, it emerged that the heat pump had been wrongly connected so it was providing heat to the underfloor heating at the temperature required by the storage cylinder for DHW and, although the room thermostats were controlling the pumps on the underfloor heating manifold, they had not been interlocked with the heat pump which, in consequence, was running continuously at its maximum return temperature.

… often there was no single contractor responsible for the installation, which might involve a ground works contractor, a plumber, a heat pump installer and an electrician. As a result of there being no ‘design authority’ for the whole system, there was no single point of responsibility or any liability for the eventual performance of the installation

… there is clearly a need for many more engineers and technicians who understand the systems engineering that has to go into a heat pump installation and who can integrate the various energy systems in a customer’s house. The present provision in higher education and further education is well below what will be required. This could be a significant brake on the deployment of low-energy systems

“Our building performance studies show unmanageable complication is the enemy of good performance. So why are we making things more complicated in the name of sustainability?” – Bill Bordass,  The Usable Buildings Trust

and in conclusion:

17.4  Skills
The levels of applications engineering required to integrate a heat pump in a property along with local energy sources and other intelligent loads, such as chargers for electric cars, is much higher than is generally available in the trades that traditionally provide heating and related services to domestic consumers. A new type of energy use professional will be needed. Recruiting these will compete with the demands of new nuclear power, offshore wind and other energy industries that are already flagging-up staff shortages.

Skills shortage will potentially be a serious barrier to decarbonising heating unless addressed effectively.

Where Greendeal will succeed …

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We are now some 9 months away from Green Deal going live in the UK.  Whether or not the initiative meets its very ambitous, even courageous aims, and manages to unravel its complexities and confusions,  be assured Green Deal could be very successful and instrumental in changing and hopefully improving our industry.

How? My thoughts …

Re-Igniting the sustainability debate in construction, particularly in areas of the industry not as yet engaged with sustainable construction.

Forcing an open and general debate about eco and energy performance of our buildings. (Some of which have been completed recently in the last decade, when we have all been building and upgrading sustainably,  or not?)

Creating the need for a total review of education and training in the industry. Are we really only now debating just what is a green skill and how we train for building green.

Revisiting collaborative working relationships in the built environment. Will we see new look consortia comprising of funders, clients, builders, energy providers, renewable energy companies and more. Who will lead?

Redefining the client – the building owner, the green deal provider, or the funder of the eco improvements.

Cutting through Green Wash in construction.  Could PAS 2030 be seen as a green build standard in the UK providing some form of green accreditation for all eco work, whether Green Deal or not.

So, to those who think that green deal does not apply to them, I would urge you to find out more – its possible the green deal concepts will reach into most areas of the built environment.

To find out more, I invite you to join me in the green deal debates on twitter, subscribe to this blog or just get in touch for more information on preparing for green deal

Sustainability: Breaking on through to the other side

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“Break on through to the Other Side”  sang Jim Morrison in the Doors way back in the 60s.

Listening again recently started me thinking of how ‘sustainability’ could be ‘breaking through to the other side’ … to a time / place where sustainability and CSR is the norm rather than something we strive for.

This, however, begs a number of tricky questions and answers

Just what does sustainability and social responsibility really look like? When or how will we know we have arrived? What exactly do we have to ‘break through’? What is the tipping point?

What we should find really exciting is that we dont really know, we dont know where the boundary or tipping point is. Where, what or indeed how far we need to push.  Are we nearly there or light years away?  This makes sustainability an adventure and exploration.

And of course many argue, quite rightly, that sustainability is a journey not a destination or a state of business.

A tipping point may well come when organisations move across a rubicon, from trying to do good whilst making a profit, to making a profit from doing good.  (I am reminded here again of Yvon Chouinard at Patagonia “every time we do the right thing for the environment we make a profit”)

Have we made sustainability and CSR too intellectual? I fear so. Is it now far too embedded in checklists, processes and systems. We have lost connection with the natural world, with planet earth, the very reason we need sustainability, resilience and CSR?

Perhaps the tipping point to breaking through to the other side is re-igniting this connection, where we dont need a tag, or a label, but doing the right thing as an organisation or individual is the norm and ‘feels’ right, rather than something we do because we are encouraged, nudged or told to do.

Through fairsnape, organisations are supported in understanding their Route to Zero, where zero is a target, the route the more important, and supported in breaking through barriers.

If you are interested in learning more, I invite you to join me in the sustainability and CSR conversations on twitter, to subscribe to this blog or to get in touch at fairsnape for more information

And a thought for the built environment in 2012… what do you see as the sustainability boundaries that we need to break through and move beyond?

iSite Blog 2011 in review

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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for iSite.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 14,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 5 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

Construction #CSR Gen X + Y and a desire to ‘do good’

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As part of background reading for construction CSR / Social Media project, focused on employers looking to attract young people into the industry, I came across a fascinating article in the Canadian Globe and Mail, GenY seeks responsible employer who listen.

It struck a real chord with an expression that had been forming over the last few weeks, that “if we dont get sustainability, social media and CSR right then young people will not want to work in construction. But they will want to work for other sectors” A compelling reasons why all this starts in the boardroom both as an organisaiton continuity or survival issue and forward thinking, growth and innovation matter.

And it is very much a social media matter, Gen X and Y will use social media to broadcast negative thoughts and obersvations, as well as positives. (The slide comes from a recent constructing social media presentation)

Corporate social responsibility ranks “quite highly” for Generation Y workers …

“The challenge is that Gen Ys hold organisations to their CSR policy. If they join and they feel that the organisation is not living up to the policy, they will become disengaged, leave the organisation and, even worse, will use social media to broadcast their negative thoughts.”

There are a number of other factors that make a company an employer of choice for Gen Y, such as: meaningful, engaging work and the opportunity to build skills; access to the latest technology; working with friends and co-workers in the same age group; a collaborative work environment and management style, and an organisational capacity for fun.

So what turns them off?

  • Stodgy, traditional companies – “they will join and stay for the money for a while, but then will leave looking for greener pastures.”
  • Managers who are not interested in them as people, or their career progression.
  • No clear line of sight between what they are doing and the big picture.
  • “When the cost of doing anything [long hours] outweighs the benefits [work-life balance].”

GVis2011 Retrofit Reality

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We are only a couple of days away from the Green Vision Retrofit Reality half day conference in Leeds.   Once again the event will be streamed and blogged live and enabled for you to participate via twitter and the cover it live blog

Live tweets and blogs will be provided via be2camp by myself and Su Butcher

The links you need to know are set out below along with the latest agendas.

 

Register interest in viewing on line here: 

Stream and Live Blog will here (be2camp) on the day

Live Stream to LMU Big Screen here

Hashtag is #GVis2011 (if you want to just follow tweets and engage they you could use tweetchat additionally you can RSS the hashtag feed here

Agenda:

13.00 – 17.00 Retrofit Reality

18.00 – 19.30 Sustainability Question Time

and then Tweetup (venue to be determined)

More Details:

Retrofit Reality:

13.00 Welcome and Registration
(Chair – Matt Fulford, Head of Buildings, Sustain)
13.30 Keynote Speaker – Retrofit UKGBC
John Alker, Head of Policy and Communications, UKGBC
13.45 Roundtable Discussion Session A
Commercial Property RetrofitMatt Whitehead, Head of Carbon and Energy Reduction at Low Carbon Buildings and Maintenance

Behavioural Change
Adam Woodhall, People Profit Planet

Green Deal Assessment Toolkit
Kate Barbier, DECC

Refurbishment of the Estate
Sue Holmes, Director of Estates, Leeds Metropolitan University  
14.45 Refreshments Break
15.00 Roundtable Discussion Session B
(select another roundtable from details outlined in Session A)
16.00 Keynote Speaker USA Perspective
(Clay Nesler, Vice President Building Efficiency Empire States Building Retrofit Case study)
16.30 Pecha Kucha ShowcasePresentations with a twist; presenters are allowed 20 slides and they are auto-advanced every 20 seconds. There is very little scope for ‘death by PowerPoint’ and provide a very engaging and creative presentations.

Sustainability Question Time:

Join us as our Guest for our Christmas Sustainability Question Time event taking place at Old Broadcasting House, Leeds Metropolitan University at 6.00pm on Thursday 1 December2011.There will be a buffet and drinks reception from 5.30pm. The evening will be opened by Paula Widdowson , CSR-i presenting ‘Increased Sustainable Cashflows‘ followed by A Sustainability Question Time.
Paula Widdowson has founded an independent sustainability consultancy called CSR-i focused on profiting through sustainability. Paula had several years’ experience as Director of Sustainability for Northern Foods working with M&S on delivering Plan A, Sainsbury on achieving their 5 core principles and ASDA on managing the Walmart sustainability index. In 2010 ‘sustainability’ in Northern Foods added £3M profit.Originally trained as a Biochemist at Leeds University, Paula started working life as a science teacher and then moved into industry. She has successfully held a number of senior roles at Esso, ASDA, Bass and Improve (the sector skills council for food and drink manufacturing).

The move into independent consultancy has resulted in CSR-i working with Government and Commercial businesses delivering a real difference to the bottom line.

In the style of the BBC’s Question Time, Paula alongside leading thinkers and experts will engage with audience questions related to sustainability issues such as:

  • Actual performance of Buildings/ technologies
  • Economic downturn and cost effective sustainable building
  • Government drivers / incentives for sustainability
  • Building Better Places

The Panel Speakers will include: Dr Tom Bliss , The Urbal Institute ;Professor Malcolm Bell , Leeds Metropolitan University;  Richard Smith , Director of Centre for Low Carbon Futures ; Paul Connell,Regional Partnerships Director at E.ON Sustainable Energy Solutions  , John O’Brien MD of Low Carbon Buildings and Maintenance , Chris Slezowski  SIG Ltd

Local Authorities, Green deal procurement, local supply chains and partnerships

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DECC have issued Green Deal guidance for Local Authorities that suggests LA’s should champion the initiative to help drive economic growth, unlocking billions of pounds worth of investment, support local jobs and local supply chains

Potential benefits to local authorities are likely to be:
• new sources of revenue to deliver energy efficiency retrofits;
• help to reduce fuel bills for local residents and businesses;
• opportunities for local economic and physical regeneration;
• support for wider local strategic priorities (better health outcomes, reduced fuel poverty);
• support for the maintenance and generation of local jobs and skills.

To deliver the Green Deal locally there are broadly three approaches local authorities might choose to adopt:
• Provide – the Green Deal directly to their local residents and businesses, co-ordinating finance and delivery;
• Partner – work in partnership with commercial Green Deal providers and community  partners to deliver and facilitate delivery; or
• Promote – by acting as advocates for the Green Deal locally

The guidance suggests usisg existing partnerships  to deliver the Green Deal – it will be to see how existing frameworks could be adopted.

For those wanting to be involved in Green Deal installation work this is a key document for understanding the potential role of Local Authorities and a spring board for understanding individual client intentions.

Download a copy here 

 

Green Deal Help

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I am often asked what can contracting organisation do to prepare for green deal.  My response is, in line with the green deal awareness programmes we run:

Work: understand green deal. How work will flow?  Who will be the providers, the clients, who will procure?

Delivery: understand what is required (standards and accreditations) in order to deliver green deal related work

Organisation: understand what changes you may need to be a green business

Visibility: understand green deal, be part of green deal discussions and be visible as a green deal player. Social media is invaluable here with twitter and linkedin having huge potential to learn and share.

If you would like more information, guidance, or our fact sheet on greening your business please do get in touch or leave comment below.

Blog Links:

More than just a Green Deal (Slide Share presentation)

Green Deal Consultation Paper

Green Reskilling

PAS 2030 Unnecessary Burden or Necessary Control

Green Deal Update Sources