Category Archives: comment

Measuring carbon savings in existing buildings

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It has long been recognised within the blogosphere at least that the biggest contribution the built environment can make to national and global carbon reductions is through existing building stock, not only through the drive for zero carbon homes by 2016 for example.

And in case we need reminding why existing buildings are key, Cyril Sweett estimate that by 2050, 60% of UK buildings will still predate 2006 Building Regs, with corresponding high fuel consumption and carbon emissions. Barring a massive technological improvement in electricity generation at source, our only option is to address existing stock. (Elemental)

Today is the start of the CIBSE 100 days of carbon clean up.

It is good to see programmes like this that address the existing building stock. Signing up to this programme will give you the guidance and tools to reduce energy and carbons within your buildings, including TM22 – the CIBSE guide to measuring carbon savings. For example are you aware of the following carbon emission factors?

  • Natural Gas: 0.194kg CO2/kWh
  • LPG: 0.235kg CO2/kWh
  • Oil: 0.265kg CO2/kWh
  • Biomass: 0.025kg CO2/kWh
  • Electricity: 0.422kg CO2/kWh

Bit of a difference there between electricity and biomass!
Check out the CIBSE programme and make a saving and contribution today.

Making refurbishment a green opportunity

In addition CIBSE are hosting the Great Refurbishment Event

or refurbishment of commercial buildings both on client or consultancy side, then the Great Refurbishment Event held at The Royal Society, London on the 24 October 2007 is a must attend event for you. Experts throughout the building services world will share with you their strategies and techniques to take you from the planning stage through to integrating your refurbishment into improving your energy performance.

carbon offsetting ignorance?

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A recent Guardian article revealed a survey showing that

Some 55% of survey respondents had either never heard of carbon offsetting, or had heard the name but didn’t know anything about it. When asked which term best described carbon offsetting, 66% were unable to give an accurate definition.

One in five said it was “the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere” while 19% selected “a chemical process which neutralises carbon dioxide gas before it is released into the atmosphere”. Some 2% of respondents thought carbon offsetting was a “new technique that eases trapped wind caused by carbonated/fizzy drinks”.

it may be good news though that:

Only 1% of Britons told researchers they had ever paid into a carbon offsetting programme.

With more and more use of carbon off putting schemes being used in the built environment to archive zero carbon status, one wonders what the level of understanding really is. (Maybe a survey in Building, Phil)

Back to the future with open office plans

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Mel over at Elemental alerted me to the new Architectural Record blog and this recent article on open office planning.

Tory green and carbon views …

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Following on from the Lib Dem green proposals (here) the Goldsmith – Gummer team have pusblished the Tories take on become green and crbon zero.

Among issues which affect the construction and fm sector are :

 a doubling of landfill tax for business

a planning presumption against the building of more out of town supermarkets in an attempt to revive and diversify town centres and local, family-run businesses.

The Tories in the run-up to the launch focused on measures to improve energy efficiency in the home including offering big cuts in stamp duty to home-owners who make their homes carbon efficient.

source – Guardian  

domestic architecture of Britain is an embarrassment ?

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Edwin Heathcote writing in the FT Weekend thinks so, with a few exceptions.  On good form, Edwin sums up the current state of architecture, design and construction.  For example, on PFI Schools and Hospitals:

 Through its reliance on the Public Finance Initiative process to deliver the biggest programme of school and hospital building in two generations, it has effectively abdicated architecture to the builders. In PFI, economy comes first, design comes nowhere. Contractors employ architects as emasculated subcontractors. The schools and hospitals we are building now and which our grandchildren will still be paying for are a cultural disgrace. These are buildings in which we spend our formative years, our most emotional moments, from birth through childhood to death. As an ageing society we will all be spending longer in hospital yet we have no alternative to the bargain-bin architecture foisted upon us. I have seen brand new PFI schools that would be impossible to differentiate from low-security prisons: dim corridors and classrooms that would make you weep. For anyone who enjoys architecture and hopes that things will improve for the future, it is heartbreaking.

and on house building:

Finally, and most depressingly, the housebuilders of Britain continue to spew their brick sprawl, those depressing children’s archetypes, the toytown brick boxes. Where they attempt “contemporary” – usually for urban flats to be snapped up by buy-to-let investors – they employ the same disengaged modernist pastiche beloved of the commercial sector. This is modernism adapted as a lifestyle choice. Except for a few ambitious housing associations and developers who are employing bright young architects, the domestic architecture of Britain is an embarrassment.

Thanks to Mel over at Elemental for highlighting this for me.   Ouch indeed !!

rethinking …

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Anyone who has attended one of my presentations or workshops over the last 10 years or so will be aware of my attachment to a great quote from Albert Einstein “we cannot change today’s problems with the same patterns of thought that created those problems in the first place”

Initially this was used to rethink the way we collaborate or integrate (or dont)within the industry, but now of late has more relevance to the way we are addressing environmental and carbon issues.

It was good to see this paradigm  in two recent articles:

Satish Kumar, editor of Resurgence commenting in the Guardian yesterday ‘Cutting carbon is a rich fool’s errand’ makes the point…Focusing only on carbon emissions without protecting ecosystems is simply treating the symptoms rather than the causes of global warming.

It has been said that “the economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of ecology”, but the economic paradigm now sweeping the world operates as if it were the other way around. Governments, industries and businesses everywhere, apart from a few enlightened exceptions such as in Bhutan, believe the economy comes first; that with economic growth it is possible to manage ecology and clean up the environment. This is at the root of the climate crisis

What does it matter if the forests have gone and the biosphere is polluted?

With money, we can fix these problems.

Our efforts to reduce carbon emissions, although necessary, are of secondary importance. Carbon trading, finding alternatives to fossil fuels and other technological solutions should not be the reason for failing to take steps in protecting the biosphere or of finding ways of living that encourage climate security.

And secondly in the FT Weekend, in an interview,architect Rick Maher, when questioned on his thoughts on ‘current green thinking’ responded  that “you don’t create a problem and then high tech methods to solve it. You need to design the need for energy out of the building in the first place. And it really works”  (my ideal house is a wreck)

All good stuff…

zero carbon Britain ??

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Following on from yesterdays post on the Lib Dem’s vision for a zero carbon Britain… one with no fossil fuel cars and a zero carbon built environment by 2050 -Leo Hickman considers the implications in today’s Guardian and rightly points out that the Lib Dems may have stolen the clothes from the other parties, albeit temporarily.

Are we seeing a rising in the ante of carbon  politics? along with a new zeitgeist of green taxes and green mortgages?

The fight is has commenced for the greenest party.  One wonders where the Green Party will position itself, or has it achieved its aim of bringing green issues to the top of the political and corporate agendas?

Lib Dems view on low carbon housing

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In what will most likely be the first of many reports, papers and manifestos as we approach conference season and elections, the Lib Dems have set out their vision of a zero-carbon Britain by 2050 when it published the most ambitious blueprint for climate change reform ever produced by a mainstream political party. (Guardian article here)

On housing the blueprint covers

Introducing ‘green mortgages’ to enable people to make their homes more energy efficient. (see previous isite post)

Cut carbon emissions from new buildings by 95 per cent compared with our existing housing stock by ensuring that all new homes have to  be built to the GreenHouse standard no later than 2011

Ensure that the housing stock is completely updated by the year 2050.

Ambitious maybe but the pattern has been set for the other political parties to follow or address.

Lib Dem Zero Carbon Britain from here

the real cost of green building?

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A recent report identified high levels of awareness of the issue of sustainable building but low levels of specific knowledge and involvement. It identified three key barriers to addressing energy efficiency in buildings

• Lack of information about building energy use and costs
• Lack of leadership from professionals and business people in the industry
• Lack of know-how and experience as too few professionals have been involved in sustainable building work.

Phil Clarke reported in Building earlier this week:

Study finds professionals misjudging sustainable budgets and underestimating carbon footprint of buildings

Construction and property professionals are overestimating green construction costs by 300%, a new survey has found.

Source:

Energy Efficiency in Buildings: Business Realities and Opportunities (PDF; 1.9 MB)
Source: World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD)
From their press release:

Survey finds green costs overestimated by 300% and a need to foster zero net energy construction. Key players in real estate and construction misjudge the costs and benefits of “green” buildings, creating a major barrier to more energy efficiency in the building sector, a new study by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD) reports.

Respondents to a 1400 person global survey estimated the additional cost of building green at 17 percent above conventional construction, more than triple the true cost difference of about 5 percent. At the same time, survey respondents put greenhouse gas emissions by buildings at 19 percent of world total, while the actual number of 40 percent is double this.

Comment

Of interest within the report, after a quick scan are:

The EEB vision is a world in which buildings consume zero net energy

Use less, make more, share There are three key elements to achieving zero net energy:
• Use less energy
• Make more energy (locally)
• Share surplus energy (through an intelligent grid)

An Integrated Design Process (IDP) involving all participants in the early design phase of the project.

Behavioral, organizational and financial approaches to overcome barriers:

Encourage interdependence by adopting holistic, integrated approaches among the stakeholders that assure a shared responsibility and accountability toward improved energy performance in buildings and their communitiesMake energy more valued by those involved in the development, operation and use of buildings

Transform behavior by educating and motivating the professionals involved in building transactions to alter their course toward improved energy efficiency in buildings.

Understanding the Merton rule…

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There has been a lot of coverage on the Merton Rule this week, with zero champion over at sustainability blog covering events.  here  and here  now, a further article in today’s Guardian attempts to clarify … or not.

Why is this important?

The so called Merton Rule wa introduced by Merton Borough and requires, as a planning requirement, that all new projects to obtain at least 10% of a building’s energy from sustainable sources such as solar or wind power.  The rule is now used by 150 councils across the UK, many using the 10% figure others, like GLA attempting to push for 20%.

A recent and current campaign by the British Property Federation and Home Builders Federation to overturn this ruling led to leaks of a draft planning policy statement which local authorities said would undermine their ability to insist that developers use green technologies.

Meanwhile – an epetition has been started… We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Not allow the abolition of the Merton Rule. There are 51 signatories so far.