Here are the slides /presentation I have made, in different formats, to a number of groups recently, pulling on a number of sources relating to sustainability in the built environment.
earth day presentation
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Category Archives: built environment
Eco City 2008 – this week
Eco City 2008 conference gets underway this week in San Fransisco. isite will be relaying media from the event through to the UK as a bogging partner.
What will of course be of interest to UK readers is the comparisons and differences in approach with our own (top down) Eco Town approach and the (grass roots) Transition Town approach.
There is also the opportunity, through isite to feed UK eco city approaches towards the Eco City 2008 Global Summit.
Stay Tuned …
profit from sustainability?
Is there profit to be made from sustainability is a question I am often asked at sustainability events, presentations and workshops. It has cropped up again today on publicity for the excellent Think 08 event next month.
In some ways the question misses the point on what sustainability is about – ie the triple bottom line of economic, social and environmental sustainability – where profit is a key element of economic sustainablity.
Within our industry if we could really move from lowest price thinking (ie meaning competition is on profit levels), start moving to ringfenced profits, then we can start to focus on the other two ‘bottom lines” with more vigour. Allowing real profits through the supply chain would have the same affect. Energies applied to trying to make a project profitable can be applied to environmental and social sustainability issues, whilst the project players remain economically sustainable.
Really tackling the 30% or so waste within our sector, (waste in time, costs, materials and most importantly management energy), would more than pay for sustainability improvements whilst allowing a profitable, viable and economically sustainable industry. For example, recent on-site studies have shown the true costs of skips to be £1300 or so. One medium size contractor I was working with recently used on average 12 skips a week across 20 projects. Do the math, as they say!
I often quote Yvon Chouinard – a mountaineering and eco hero of mine – founder of Patagonia clothing, who says that “every time I have done the right thing for the planet I have made a profit…even if the right thing cost twice as much”. Of course it needs the appropriately correct organisational ethos in place to achieve this. (see Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman
Take a look this review extract of Let my people go surfing:
Yvon Chouinard is one of the most important business leaders around today because he’s made a values-lead business highly profitable. Any aspring business leader (and, more importantly, those already running businesses) should be forced to read this. It’s the future.
So yes, there is profit in sustainability – currently, we cannot see it for the barriers and blinkers within the baggage we carry. We cannot fix todays problems with the same thinking that created the problems.
whats no longer impossible ?
Read an interesting post at Worldchanging this morning regarding what is now possible and even essential that was once thought impossible. The post asked the question on a generic sustainability level at a Green Festival event.
It got me thinking though – what in the built environment is now feasible, possible or down right essential that a few years ago was deemed impossible?
Answers on a postcard.
Time to get interactive – so a call to all fellow bloggers (Mel, Phil, Pam, Casey, Mark ) syndicated blogs ( eg Eco City and friends at Byoblue) and all the hundreds of readers out there… whats your ‘was impossible’ story?
I will add mine to the end of the comments.
time for built environment transition?
We may now have a handbook for sustainability change in our sector.
When facilitating sessions on sustainability in the built environment, I often get delegates to ‘stand in the future’, 2030 is always a good date, imagine what buildings and our use of them would be like, and try to identify what messages they would send back to today. Often they talk of well insulated, 100% sealed construction, 100% renewable energy (which often drives the car), bright, vibrant, natural light and ventilated environments, and more in touch with the natural environemnt. They talk of more team work, long established supply chains from the local area and more use of natural material.
Interesting they very rarely describe the current approaches of today – ie Eco-Home, Code 6 or Passiv House, BREEAM or whatever. (Maybe through current lack of real understanding what these concepts are). What they describe, unwittingly perhaps is a post oil built environment, even a post carbon (ie post carbon being a driver or worry)
Rob Hopkins, architect of the Transition Movement, in his excellent book The Transition Handbook: From Oil Dependency to Local Resilience
Central to the book are the themes of post oil and reslience (resilience being the ability of a system to continue functioning in the face of any change or shocks from outside). Littered with well placed quotations, tools for community engagement and learning, templates to use and a history of transition, it is in essence the guide to tranistion movement, but far more than that. I can see this aspirational book one I will read more than once, to dip into and to learn a lot from. Divided into the head (for the ideas) the heart (for passion) and the hands – (for action), it could be seen to be the activists handbook for community based societies and enterprises.
There is a sense of the tipping point concept running throughout the book – given enough direction and empowerment, communities and people will tip the swing towards sustainable environments. Here perhaps is one key to the future – one of communialism rather than the approach of accommadationism we are taking tat the moment.
If any feeling of ‘concern’ exists on reading the book, it is in the tools. Focused at social and communtiy enterprise thinking people they work exceedingly well. To engage main stream built environment companies into the post oil and tranistion concept, a new set of tools maybe required – sharper and aimed at business survial and resilience
The closing chapter is aspirational – Closing Thoughts – “Something about the profoundly cahllenging times we live in strikes me as being tremondously exciting” Rob writes. and closes with a quote from Camus, In the depth of winter I finally realised there was in me an invincible summer
A quick scan of reviews for this book indicate its potential importance: for example:
The newly published ‘Transition Handbook’ is so important that I am tempted just to confine this review to five simple words ‘You must read this book!’ But to do so would, of course, completely fail to communicate its message which is, I believe, so profound and inspiring that I want to do my very best to encourage its spread far and wide.
Wherever you are on the sustainable journey … Transition Handbook will be of assistance. It is on the one hand a very worrying read, on the other inspirational. Through out I kept asking myself is our design, construction and FM sector ‘resilient’?
Maybe it is time for the built environment sector to take on and learn from the transition movement, to reach the tipping point for change. It is encouraging to see Rob Hopkins is talking at the Think 08 event in May. Will this be the catalyst I wonder?
More information and discussion over at the Transition Culture web blog.
are green buildings usable?
It seems we are becoming awash with green buildings, eco homes and eco towns.
There are some great sites out there with green architecture eye candy (check out Mad Architecture for example).
We have some major and significant conferences and events on the horizon – from the international Eco City 2008, Green Build 2008 and West Coast Green, here in the UK Think 08, and more locally the Elevate Exemplar event in September and the Lancs Best Practice Club July event. All very different and important to their target audiences.
Even in Second Life there are great green and sustainable ‘built environment’ demonstration and education projects
And yet in all the design, conferences, events and working groups I see very little about the usability of green buildings – what is it like to work, live and play in them? What does the comfort level within (and around) green building do for health, for productivity and for well being? What is it really like to be a citizen of a eco-city such as Auroville?
Once again I am convinced its not the building – green or other wise – but the way we use buildings that is paramount importance on the sustainability agenda – as Prof Keith Alexander down at the Center for Facilities Management comments – its about building consumption – not production.
Time to turn the telescope around? Is the green / sustainability movement in the built environment stuck in the building production with eye candy design, at the expense of the usability of the buildings?
As a Friday comment – I am throwing down a challenge for comments and evidence – are Green Buildings usable?
I invite guest posts here and links to sites that discuss this issue.
UK sustainability events
I seem to be on a conference theme this evening so I should give a plug for two important UK events, (or Phil will be after me)
Think 08 – 7 and 8 May 2008
Think08 is a free exhibition and high level conference about thinking through and delivering sustainability in the built environment. With over 100 exhibitors and 80 free seminars, Think provides free content, networking and learning from thought leaders, alongside vibrant social events such as the Think Ball and Regatta.
(and a bloggers convention is promised)
Sustainability Now – 1 and 2 June 2008
Sustainability Now is a unique virtual event, highlighting the essential issues that matter right now for those creating a sustainable built environment.
sustainable connectivity
A new look for isite with a new image on the top banner(*). I like this design as it includes a RSS button – to get isite delivered to your desktop, and a search facility to search back through isite items.
But a little more too. After reflection on this blogs contents and direction, I have slightly amended the purpose of isite.
Yes it will continue to be a news views and comments blog for the built environment, poking here and there when things dont seem quite right or dubious, or indeed covered with greenwash. It will continue to be a voice to the online world for the Lancashire Best Practice Construction Club and to a lesser degree the CKE, and will continue to focus on collaborative working, integrated working, facilities management, futures and improvement towards excellence. The emerging web2.0 or even 3.0, and I include second life here, is an important theme that links and enables allot of what we, what I do, so will remain a key element of the posts and comments.
isite is also of course the outlet to the world for my business – fairsnape. (the name was taken from the local hill in the Forest of Bowland visible from my base here)
However, more importantly I see isite starting to look at connectivity with the natural environment. A number of activities I have been involved with lately has made me realise we may be where we are today because we have lost, and struggling to regain connectivity with our impact on ecology in its widest sense.
What does this mean? – Ecological footprints more than carbon footprints – as John Muir said when we tug on a single thing in nature we find it attached to everything else . – natural materials rather than harmful – renewable energy rather than fossil fuels, community based FM rather than endless target driven fm, about responsible sourcing rather than supply chain bullying, all putting a new direction to CSR.
I have long used the triptych of fit for people purpose and planet (before it became enshrined into the triple bottom line concept I like to think) . It is what Patrick Geddes would call folk, work and place, nearly a century ago, and reading Satish Kumar over the weekend – he described our modern trinity as needing soil, soul and society. Soil for the environment. soul for a spiritual dimension and society for justice.
Kumar a great walker – now based at the Schumacher college in Dartmoor, that incidentally run courses on Zen and Construction, talks about never trusting ideas that you never worked through whilst walking. “when you walk you are connected with nature, when in a car or a building your are disconnected, you walk to connect yourself”.
A while ago I started a benchmark walking programme to do just this – getting workshops and learning sharing events out of a training room or hotel into the countryside. With a loose agenda that emerges to deal with peoples real improvement needs, benchmarkwalks allows real learning and sharing, I likened it to doing business on a golf course – but this is business improving on a walk.
So all this as a preamble to a new thread for isite – connectivity – one I hope that will give it more scope, depth and importance as we address the sustainability issues, the soil, soul and society issues facing the built environment.
(* taken at Beacon Fell, Forest of Bowland, Lancashire recently – a location for many benchmarkwalks)
FMB Building a Greener Britain
In a week when Ken Livingston and joined forces with Sian Berry (Green Party) against Boris Johnson, in their pursuit for the next London Mayor, warning of his negative and regressive green views and plans, the FMB (Federation of Master Builders) released a press statement calling Boris Johnson’s vision for London housing – “fresh thinking’.
Details of the FMB campaign can be found at Building a Greener Britain
Jayne Curtis at the FMB has provided the following commentary:
As you will see from the press release the FMB says: “Boris Johnson, the Conservative Party mayoral candidate for London, hits the nail on the head when he says that fresh thinking is needed to get more homes built, and that the quality of what we build is as important as the quantity, says the Federation of Master Builders (FMB) commenting on
his housing manifesto, ‘Building a Better London’.”
The press release goes on to say: “The question still remains about what to do with London’s existing housing stock? Boris Johnson needs to consider how to make London’s existing housing stock greener and more energy efficient.”
The FMB would also like to point out that it does not favour any mayoral candidate and is keen to work with whoever is elected. The FMB works with all political parties; as you will see from the Building a Greener Britain campaign, which is endorsed by David Cameron, Leader of the Conservative Party, and Nick Clegg, Leader of the Liberal Democrat Party.
The Building a Greener Britain campaign is focusing on refurbishment and how to reduce carbon emissions in the built environment. The FMB has commissioned research which is being conducted by the Low Carbon Futures team at the Oxford University Environmental Change Institute and is being lead by Gavin Killip, one of the authors of the 40% House report, and Dr Nick Eyre, former Director of Strategy at the Energy Saving Trust.
The vast majority of buildings that are with us now will be around in 2050, the date when the Government hopes to have lowered carbon emissions by 80%, with buildings contributing 47% of the UK’s total carbon emissions it is therefore vital that something is done to look at how we can reduce carbon emissions from the existing building stock.
With three quarters of FMB members carrying out RMI work on existing buildings, the FMB has a key role to play in helping the Government achieve its target to cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. The ground breaking research will present a series of practical policy recommendations aimed at government which will help encourage
householders to make their homes greener. In order to help the government the FMB strongly believes that builders should play a full and constructive role in building the new greener Britain.
a real school for the future – without eco-bling
Education Guardian reports today on the development of Acharacle School on the Ardnamurchan peninsula in Scotland. The report by Tariq Tahir, should make ‘essential ‘ reading for those involved in school design, construction and in community assets. In addition the school childrens blog ‘they are building outside our class‘ illustrates how construction can be a real educational benefit. One to RSS and watch develop.
And with no eco-bling, no greenwash, this is sustainable development…
The design, illustrating a sustainable future, for two or three generations is based on the use of mass-timber. Architect Howard Liddel from Gaia comments … “the modern school does what it says on the tin but what it has on the tin is a skull and crossbones, and these are toxic fumes. Modern buildings have huge amounts of formaldehyde coming out of the floor coverings, seat coverings, the walls run with condensation.”
“What this project is doing is ticking a lot of boxes in a very subtle manner. There’s no covering the building in ‘eco-bling’ – the gimmicks people put on to make buildings green. It’s really quite liberating for an architect.”
He promised that the new building would provide a much healthier working environment for the staff and 50-odd pupils. “We have an immense problem with toxic materials in buildings – we have 55,000 chemicals we use in building and only 3% of them have been tested for their effects on humans.
“The timber is very good at dealing with indoor moisture passively. In other words, you don’t need a ventilation system when you’ve actually got a material that’s dealing with the moisture. Continue reading
Fairsnape 