Category Archives: carbon

Changing our carbon footprint…

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Earlier this week the Government launched the draft Government and Industry Sustainable Construction Strategy for conusltation.Reducing on-site waste, using sustainable materials, and increasing skills in the workforce are just some of the 35 or so  targets set out for our industry, in a strategy that will undoubtedly have a profound impact on education, design, procurement, construction and facilities management.

The draft strategy’s key areas include:

  • Reducing the carbon footprint of activities within the construction sector
  • Production of zero net waste at construction site level
  • Developing voluntary agreements and initiatives between the construction industry and its clients with the aim of reducing the carbon footprint and use of resources within the built environment
  • Creating a safer industry by improving skills, boosting the numbers of workers taking part in training programmes, and retaining more skilled workers.

Stephen Timms, Minister for construction  said:

“The threat of global warming is of enormous concern to the community, and it demands change from Government, industry and the public alike.

“Currently the built environment accounts for around 47% of greenhouse gas emissions in the UK (Construction accounts for 1.5%). Not only must the construction industry rise to the challenge of reducing those emissions, it must also consider how it will adapt its products to deal with the impacts of unavoidable climate change.”

 Use your chance to comment – download the consultation document 

2030 – just when you thought …

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… meanwhile the following email posting from the USA Architecture 2030 programme makes sobering reading.

Architecture 2030:

Rapidly accelerating climate change (global warming), which is caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, is now fueling dangerous regional and global environmental events. Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration illustrates that buildings are responsible for almost half (48%) of all GHG emissions annually. Seventy-six percent of all electricity generated by US power plants goes to supply the Building Sector. Therefore, immediate action in the Building Sector is essential if we are to avoid hazardous climate change.

Just when we thought we were making a difference…

Wal-Mart, the largest “private” purchaser of electricity in the world is investing a half billion dollars to reduce the energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of their existing buildings by 20% over the next 7 years. “As one of the largest companies in the world, with an expanding global presence, environmental problems are our problems,” said CEO Lee Scott. The CO2 emissions from only one medium-sized coal-fired power plant, in just one month of operation each year, would negate Wal-Mart’s entire effort. Continue reading →

The 2010 Imperative – (NW Sustainability Network)

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Further to the NW sustainability network initial meeting this week, noted the following on the USA’s Arctitecture 2030 programme web site, the 2010 Imperative

How about carbon neutral campuses (campi?) for the NW by 2010 ???

To successfully impact global warming and world resource depletion, it is imperative that ecological literacy become a central tenet of design education. Yet today, the interdependent relationship between ecology and design is virtually absent in many professional curricula. To meet the immediate and future challenges facing our professions, a major transformation of the academic design community must begin today. To accomplish this, The 2010 Imperative calls upon this community to adopt the following:

Beginning in 2007, add to all design studio problems that:
“the design engage the environment in a way that dramatically reduces or eliminates the need for fossil fuel.”

By 2010, achieve complete ecological literacy in design education, including:

  • design / studio
  • history / theory
  • materials / technology
  • structures / construction
  • professional practice / ethics

By 2010, achieve a carbon-neutral design school campus by:

  • implementing sustainable design strategies (optional – LEED Platinum / 2010 rating)
  • generating on-site renewable power
  • purchasing green renewable energy and/or certified renewable energy credits (REC’s, Green Tags), 20% maximum

After the flood

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We have to tackle carbon emmisions if we want to avoid more flooding, argues Tony Juniper on his Comment is Free blog

Dealing with the effects of heavy rain is one thing but, if recent climate change research proves correct, how will we cope with what lies ahead?

The future of the Code for Sustainable Homes – Making a rating mandatory

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From the Communities and  Local Government website:

The Code measures the sustainability of a new home. It went live in England as a voluntary standard in April 2007. This consultation document follows on from the positive response received to Building a Greener Future: Towards Zero Carbon Development, where we asked if rating against the Code should be mandatory.

Consultation is aimed at Housing development industry, architects, construction companies, planners, energy efficiency specialists, environmental stakeholders and academics.

Building purple haze…

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The post to Worldchanging on green issues in New York City caught my eye over the weekend:

Around 85 percent of all the buildings that will exist in New York City in 25 years are already standing, according to reporter J. Alex Tarquino in this past Sunday’s edition of The New York Times. 80 percent of the city’s greenhouse gas pollution is created by building energy use — with residential buildings taking up about one-third of that energy.

So however advanced green building methods become, however energy-efficient, we’re going to make the biggest gains in cutting energy use — thus lowering particulate and greenhouse gas pollution — by transforming these older buildings.

Even though the New York way of living is inherently very energy-efficient, compared to other American cities or communities, we can do better, reports Tarquino:

The article makes a valid point of focusing equally on the facilities management aspect of the built enviroment as the construction.

There are so many figures around as to the built environments contribution to carbon and other ”greenhouse’ gases.

Sometimes it feels we are patting fog…do we really know? As Dave over at Carbon Coach has been pointing out for many years now…if carbon gases were purple then the sky would have changed colour in our lifetimes,  and we would be living in a purple haze now – but we would take action …but as its colourless…we don’t.

ithink comment – smoking ban – environmental timebomb?

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i-think has posted this thought provoking comment.  Log on to i-think to join the debate and comment.

The smoking ban has occasioned much debate from both the pro- and anti- camps, but now it seems that the new law could also lead to an unexpected environmental backlash.

A recent survey by British Gas asserts that the average gas-fired patio heater emits more CO2 per year than a Range Rover and the sudden upsurge in patio heaters, used to warm determined smokers who flock outside pubs for their much-needed cigarette breaks, could be drastically harming the environment.

Based on the usage of patio heaters in Scotland post its smoking ban in March 2006, British Gas estimates that now the whole of the UK is smoke-free patio heaters in pubs will emit up to 160,000 tonnes of CO2 per year.

According to Darren Johnson – Green Party member of the London assembly “each patio heater generates 2.2 tonnes of carbon dioxide on average per year – the equivalent to driving a car for over 6,000 miles”. In layman’s terms, some claim that patio heaters installed in pubs could produce as much carbon dioxide as a small city.

So what’s the alternative? Should the hardened smoker simply have to reach for another jumper, as the Lib Dem environmental spokesman Normal Baker has suggested? Or are these figures just a massive case of over-inflated scaremongering?

Green Lessons for New Schools (BSF Update)

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Mile Barter, communications at Lancs BSF, has sent in the following update:

Pupils from Burnley are using the building of their new school to learn about the environment – and to encourage action to stop global warming.  The 11 and 12-year-olds from Shuttleworth College, on Kiddrow Lane, have set up a sustainability project as part of their science learning.  They are researching the school’s carbon footprint and finding ways of reducing energy consumption Continue reading →

civil sustainability

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the recently launched civil engineering sustainability strategy can be downloaded from the CIRIA news site. (Can’t locate it on the ICE site which seems the obvious place!)

Well worth a read, I particularly like the aims:

Aim 1 Promote strong leadership for sustainable development within civil engineering There is a need for strong commitment and leadership at all levels, including clients, to tap into the enormous potential of civil engineering to protect the environment and promote sustainable development.

leadership is vital and it will interesting to watch how leaders in this sector become role models

But equally as interesting is Aim 3

Build capacity for sustainable development in civil engineering building capacity for sustainable development is about equipping organisations and individuals with the understanding, skills and access to independent information, knowledge and training that enables them to perform effectively.

It will again be interesting to see how this emerges, and whether an open source approach to knowledge share and education is adopted (open source sustainability)

I noted no mention of measuring the ecological (or carbon) footprint of civil engineering activities.

Sustainable development or jobs for the boys?

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 Recent comments from the team at i-think – what do yu think?  Join the debate at  i-think

Sustainable development or jobs for the boys?

The Communities and Local Government department says the Government’s ‘Planning for a Sustainable Future: White Paper’ “proposes reforms on how we take decisions on nationally significant infrastructure projects – including energy, waste, waste-water and transport – responding to the challenges of economic globalisation and climate change. It also proposes further reforms to the Town and Country Planning system, building on the recent improvements to make it more efficient and more responsive.”

Friends of the Earth say that “sustainable development is being stripped apart to benefit big business. These proposals are bad for people, bad for democracy and bad for the environment … They will leave affected communities with no meaningful say in how their area is developed.”

What do you think? Click here to comment on i-Think.com.

Climate Change for the Masses

The plethora of recent events designed to tackle climate change culminated last week in Live Earth, Al Gore’s much publicised 24-hour, 7-continent concert series. With the aim of triggering a mass global movement in response to the climate change agenda, more than 100 musical acts were united in order to reach a worldwide audience of an estimated 2 billion people.

So do these essentially ‘consumer’ events help or hinder the cause? Live Earth has been criticised for being little more than a middle-of-the-road publicity stunt and, with many of the acts arriving via international air travel, could be seen as making a mockery of the entire underlying message.

And yet maybe that’s the point. Live Earth may not have had any measurable effect in terms of tackling global warming, but at least we all know what the point of the event was. As Environment Secretary Hilary Benn pointed out, “Events like Live Earth can help to bring people together to encourage them to take action locally, nationally, and internationally and with more than 40% of the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions coming from people’s homes and travel, inspiring people to act is increasingly urgent.”

Perhaps the message that we should take away from Live Earth is one of inclusiveness. Clearly business organisations need to play their part in reducing carbon emissions, but corporates should not be expected to shoulder the full weight of responsibility.

Research commissioned by DEFRA found that although 94% of British people think that the world’s climate is changing, only 66% say that they are personally taking action to limit this change. So what about the other 28%?

Using low energy lightbulbs, less of a reliance on air-conditioning and/or heating, switching off electrical appliances rather than merely leaving them on stand-by and a careful consideration of transport options are among the easiest changes that we can all make right across our every day lives.

Climate change is a big deal, but living and working sustainably, even at a personal level, need not be.

Log on to i-think to comment.