Category Archives: green buildings

Existing housing stock and climate change – your views?

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The government has launched an inquiry into dealing with the existing hosuing stock and its contribution to climate change. (The UK’s domestic building stock is responsible for around a quarter of all carbon emissions in the UK)

It will be considering the extent to which current measures to adapt existing housing, whether owner occupied, rented privately or social, have been successful and how improvements might be achieved.   Evidence is invited from interested individuals and organisations on a range of topics, including:

  • The significance of existing housing compared to new build and the different levels of performance each display
  • The respective roles of residents, homeowners, landlords, local government, central government and the energy industry in promoting and delivering greater energy efficiency
  • Energy performance certificates
  • The provision of information for households and prospective house buyers, including energy performance certificates
  • Government efforts to reduce carbon emissions from existing housing stock whether in private or public ownership and other related programmes including Decent Homes
  • The technologies available to reduce emissions and the Government’s role in facilitating relevant further technological development
  • The costs associated with reducing carbon emissions from existing housing, who should meet those costs and particularly, in respect of low-income households, interaction between carbon emission reductions and the Government’s ambitions to reduce poverty
  • The specific challenges which may arise in relation to housing of special architectural or historical interest

More details and information on submitting evidence at www.parliament.uk

The Committee invites to submit written memoranda addressing these topics by Wednesday 26th September 2007.

Green breakfast in Lancashire 12 Sept

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Lancashire Economic Partnership (LEP) are hosting a free green breakfast networking event, Profit the Environment and your Business, aimed at construction and manufacturing businesses on 12 Sept.  From the LEP website:

– Are you taking effective measures to reduce your carbon footprint?
– Is your competitiveness stalling on environmental performance?
– Are you buying energy at the best time and price?
– Are your green credentials strong enough to win new business?
– Is your business exposed to energy risk?
– Are you in full control of your water supply and wastewater?
– How much profit are you throwing out with the waste?
– Are you ready for new environmental legislation coming your way?

more info and registration at the LEP website

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 

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

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.

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 →

Construction Carbon Calculator – a challenge?

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By far the highest number of searches that end up at this blog are related to the words Construction Carbon Calculator, and pages in this blog that talk about carbon calculators receive the highest visits.

This leads me to think that there is not a suitable carbon calculator for our industry – for the construction process – not the building or facility

A challenge then – is anyone out there aware of or using a calculator, or is anyone developing one.?

It could well be that we just do not know what the carbon footprints of construction activities really are, and that is worrying.

Comments, views and links to those construction carbon calculators please…

Offsite2007

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I have a meeting planned down at the BRE in a week or so and hope, as part of the visit to view the buildings erected as part of the Offsite 2007 event. (now closed, but the website contains much useful information)
As we lead up to the LCBPC Innovation event on the 5th July, its well worth looking at the modern methods of construction innovations from offsite 2007, both in off site  prefabrication, in innovative on site technology, and near-carbon-zero construction.  The photo diary blog  of the construction and event provides an fascinating insight.

Of particular interest is the Rethink School building from Wilmot Dixon – The school building itself is a teaching and learning tool, with every part of the school’s design, construction and operation an educational opportunity.

Slow Home Futures

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In comparison to the news that the UK housing sector is to be invetsigated, and with the media quick to pick up on the numbers that only 3 in 4 (76%) of people buying new homes are satisfied with quality, I was intrigued to get news from the USA on the emerging Slow Homes Movement.

This movement is similar to the slow food movement that kicks back against the fast food industry, kicking back as it does against the fast home industry – as the worldchanging website states:

Brown (founder of SHM) makes the increasingly known correlation between suburban living and obesity, indicating that fast food and fast housing not only have comparable results within their respective industries, but literally the same result: a declining state of health across a huge swathe of the North American population.

The movement is based on an interesting, worthwhile and common sense set of 10 principles – which may ring a few bells in our own hosuing sustainability / carbon zero agendas – or maybe not :-

1. GO INDEPENDENT Avoid homes by big developers and large production builders. They are designed for profit not people. Work with independent designers and building contractors instead.

2. GO LOCAL Avoid home finishing products from big box retailers. The standardized solutions they provide cannot fit the unique conditions of your home. Use local retailers, craftspeople, and manufacturers to get a locally appropriate response and support your community.

3. GO GREEN Stop the conversion of nature into sprawl. Don’t buy in a new suburb. The environmental cost can no longer be justified. Re-invest in existing communities and use sustainable materials and technologies to reduce your environmental footprint.

4. GO NEAR  Reduce your commute. Driving is a waste of time and the new roads and services required to support low density development is a big contributor to climate change. Live close to where you work and play.

5. GO SMALL Avoid the real estate game of bigger is always better. A properly designed smaller home can feel larger AND work better than a poorly designed big one. Spend your money on quality instead of quantity.

6. GO OPEN Stop living in houses filled with little rooms. They are dark, inefficient, and don’t fit the complexity of our daily lives. Live in a flexible and adaptive open plan living space with great light and a connection to outdoors.

7. GO SIMPLE Don’t buy a home that has space you won’t use and things you don’t need. Good design can reduce the clutter and confusion in your life. Create a home that fits the way you really want to live.

8. GO MODERN Avoid fake materials and the re-creation of false historical styles. They are like advertising images and have little real depth. Create a home in which character comes from the quality of space, natural light and the careful use of good, sustainable materials.

9. GO HEALTHY Avoid living in a public health concern. Houses built with cheap materials off gas noxious chemicals. Suburbs promote obesity because driving is the only option. Use natural, healthy home materials and building techniques. Live where you can walk to shop, school and work.

10. GO FOR IT Stop procrastinating. The most important, and difficult, step in the slow home process is the first one that you take. Get informed and then get involved with your home. Every change, no matter how small, is important.

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