I have added another blog to the blogroll – down there on the right somewhere – capablepeople is a new blog on the block and while it isnt a ‘built environment’ or ‘sustainability’ blog, is an entertaining and readable blog on general business improvement themes.
The first batch of posts covers a wide range from EFQM and ISO 9000 to Leadership via Joy Division and Formula 1.
One to add to your RSS or igoogle.
In 1987 (sustainable development) was about meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (Brundtland) but now in 2007 – the bill we hand our children may prove impossible to pay (Steiner UNEP)
The GEO4 report, Global Environment Outlook: Environment for Development launched yesterday by the UNEP (United Nations Environmental Programe ) should be read and considered in the context of the contribution that the global built environment has made to our current environmental crisis. (Just under 50% of global carbon emissions, 50% of all UK waste etc, etc- the figures, although varied, have been well documented in many places)
The GEO4 report received much news coverage and hopefully will be the last wake up call we need, and seen as another key milestone in our awareness of what we are doing, along side the Brundtland commision, the Stern Report, Inconvenient Truth etc
From GEO4
“all too often [the response] has been slow and at a pace and scale that fails to respond to or recognise the magnitude of the challenges facing the people and the environment of the planet,” said the environment programme’s executive director Achim Steiner.
“The systematic destruction of the Earth’s natural and nature-based resources has reached a point where the economic viability of economies is being challenged – and where the bill we hand to our children may prove impossible to pay,”
The report said irreversible damage to the world’s climate will be likely unless greenhouse gas emissions drop to below 50% of their 1990 levels before 2050. To reach this level, the richer countries must cut emissions by 60% to 80% by 2050 and developing countries must also make significant reductions, it says.
(see Contraction and Convergence)
The 550-page report took five years to prepare. It was researched and drafted by almost 400 scientists, whose findings were peer-reviewed by 1,000 others.
One of the report’s authors, Joseph Alcamo said that race is on to determine if leaders move fast enough to save the planet. “The question for me, for us perhaps, is whether we’re going to make it to a more slowly changing world or whether we’re going to hit a brick wall in the Earth’s system first,” he said.
“Personally, I think this could be one of the most important races that humanity will ever run.”
green school /grEn skül / n. a school building or facility that creates a healthy environment that is conducive to learning while saving energy, resources and money
To help educate and encourage construction firms and others about the benefits of sustainable schools the US Green Building Council have recently launched a site dedicated to Green Schools According to the site, green schools, on average, save $100,000 a year, use 33% less energy, and reduce solid waste by 74%. They also increase learning potential, reduce teacher absenteeism and turnover, and provide opportunities for hands-on learning.
The site contains a number of resources, but listening to the 9min video of students talking about environmnetal stewardship as a result of their green building is very strong. “the new building had no new smells – which is good because those smells are only chemicals”
With criticism of the green aspects of our Building Schools for the Future it would be good to hear of similar ‘awareness‘ resources in the UK.
Further to the last post on carbon neutral and Code for Sustainable Homes, I am reminded from Phil’s blog over at Sustainability Blog that Building are running an on line semiar– a webinar on Code for Sustainable Homes.
(Unfortunately I am running a real life event at UCLAN, otherwise I would be there, or here, in front of wood stove fire with laptop!)
Another excellent report from the Centre for Integrated Sustainability Analysis, Carbon Sense and Sensibility offers a definition of carbon neutral by looking at 11 websites that offer carbon neutrality calculators and services (offsets).
The definition is based around the idea of concept of measuring a carbon footprint and then seeking to cancel out that footprints with some kind of equal but opposite behaviour or consequence.
A must read for any organisation considering offsets to achieve neutrality or any carbon offset
.. you need to ask questions about just what carbon you are responsible for, how it is being measured and then exactly where the carbon credits have come from, how reductions have been verified and how you will know that once you have paid for those reductions they are retired so that nobody else can buy them …
gulp…
This then is very different from zero carbon -where activities are not neutralised but reduced to zero through ‘improvement’ activities and just doing things differently, and certainly not through offsetting. (and the Code for Sustainable Homes calls for Zero Carbon – not carbon neutral ?)
A zero energy building (ZEB) or net zero energy building is a general term applied to a building with a net energy consumption of zero over a typical year.In October 2007, The Uk Green Building Council warned that few zero carbon homes were actually being built as as the criteria for carbon neutral stamp relief was so stringent. However, although “It’s not a legal obligation that zero carbon homes are built now”, “building regulations are being increased in line with the Code for Sustainable Homes over the next nine years”
We hear allot about supply chain management within our industry, and until recently mainly in the context of improving value, relationships, reducing costs, waste and all the nice performance improvement stuuf.
What if we add reducing the carbon or ecological footprint into the supply chain management debate.
An excellent paper from the Centre for Integrated Sustainability Analysis – Unravelling the Impacts of Supply Chains – A new Triple Bottom Line accounting approach looks at just this issue.
It also raises the fundamental question on calculating carbon footprints – we are concerned in the main, at the moment, with direct or primary emissions – ie those we, or an organisation are directly responsible for, How about those (secondary) emissions upstream, through the supply chain activities, raw material production etc, which in the context of a construction footprint surely must be taken into account.
We have seen this exercise start and stop within other sectors. for example the large supermarket organisation – but will it only be a matter of time before a wider view on the construction carbon emissions and contribution is expected within the built environment?
With the proliferation of websites and services offering to calcuate your footprint and allow you to offset, it is good to come across one site that offers a very different approach to get the offset message across.
About CheatNeutral
Cheatneutral is about offsetting infidelity. We’re the only people doing it, and Cheatneutral is a joke.
Carbon offsetting is about paying for the right to carry on emitting carbon. The Carbon offset industry sold £60 million of offsets last year, and is rapidly growing. Carbon offsetting is also a joke.
It is also very encouraging to see that the people behind Cheat Neutral support, recommend and provide links to Contraction and Convergance. Again from their site:
One of the fascinating things behind the statistics to running a blog is the search items people use to end up here at isite.
Still by a large margin is the search for a good construction carbon calculator. However coming up fast on the inside, is the search of things solar relating to energy and building design. This has led to me to brush up on my knowledge – and found this fascinating wikipedia entry. Passive solar building design
Passive solar building design involves the modeling, selection and use of appropriate passive solar technologies to maintain the building environment at a desired temperature range (usually based around human thermal comfort) throughout the sun’s daily and annual cycles. As a result it generally minimizes the use of active solar, renewable energy and especially fossil fuel technologies.
I would add into this the passive solar lighting concepts of sun-pipes, light tubes and wind pipes which we use to great effect here. Having daylight and fresh air into the middle of the house is wonderful – and saves on lighting energy and costs, even on overcast days.
Attending a number of fringe events hosted by Climate Clinic at the conservative conference in Blackpool (because of the location not any political alliance) looking for hints as to the future treatment of the built environment left me slightly worried. Cutting through the rhetoric, I found very little conviction that politicians or advisors have a handle on dealing with our sector. There appears to be a blinkered approach with no joined up thinking.
Key themes I took away include
More political focus will be placed on the built environment sector as a tool to reduce overall carbon emissions. However this would seem to lead to more confusion as Merton Rules, Building Regulations, grants and subsides, etc get tampered with.
Mircopower, decentralised power suppliers and feed in tariffs are very popular. Interesting question though is how large scale green power schemes – such as wind and Severn barrier become environmental problems associated with centralised power
The Quality of Life group group paper Blueprint for a Green Economy from authors Goldsmith and Gummer is the mantra of the conservatives, with praise upon praise being heaped on to Zac Goldsmith every time the document was mentioned. Yet, this is a market driven approach, very close to Tory values that may well have contributed to where we are today, (for example ‘Construction companies must take the lead in ensuring new buildings are as green as possible,) and has a few striking omissions, such as biodiversity. Still worth reading …just in case. The highlights relating to buildings include:
Two non political comments I took away, which sums up the problems we face:
From Michael McCarthy, Environmental Editor of the Independent…“be clear: this is the ultimate political issue”
and from Sunand Prasad, President of the RIBA, who queried in the Quality of Life question time session whether this issue was too big to be political and requires some form of non, or a – political body to drive, to collect green taxes and make the ‘polluter pay’.
Listening and reading between the lines, and indeed one of the questions at the Quality of Life question time,was the difference between he Goldsmith-Gummer approach and those who feel the environment agenda has gone to far, notably the Redwood degulation camp. The question to the panel was for how long can both remain within a conservative party.
Leaving the event the most striking moment however was the fantastic sunset, in contrast to the high energy usage Blackpool Illuminations, just a reminder that the earth and nature is far superior and will out survive our messing it up, and how important nature and biodiversity etc are in the balance of our approaches. (Ok, a Gaia moment but hey…)
Tony Juniper sums up the conservative environmental approach from a Friends of the Earth view here – A Paler Shade of Green
I am delighted that isite, fairsnape and CKE are now working together to bring news of CKE’s events and projects (focusing on the North West activities) through this blog. We also welcome Andrea Pye, CKE, as a guest blogger and contributor. Welcome to the blogosphere!
The newly created CKE page to this blog will carry more details of the events, news, and project case sudies. In addition we are working on thecreation of a similar relationship and dedicated blog space for the Women in Construction project currently under way as part of the CKE programme.
Fairsnape 