Category Archives: News

Manchester plans low-carbon future

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Manchester city council is embarking on an ambitious plan to tackle global warming by controlling all aspects of the city’s energy supply by 2020. Report – Guardian 31 Jan

Excellent news, that will put it in the league of other cities around the world with similar aspirations.

As it appears to be a daunting goal, the council has produced a strategy which includes bite-size targets in three key areas; commercial, domestic and transport.

However, will this drive  improvement in the energy and domestic and commercial built environment sectors ?  Will universities, academia and collages in the region gear up to be able to deliver the skills required – (the track record dosen’t look good).

Also that date 2020 – how does that tie in with all the other milestones for acheiving zero or low carbon in the built environment sector?

a rash of carbuncles

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Good to see Charles back into the discussion …. raising again a key and essential element of sustainability – of communities, of heritage and of sky lines.

Prince Charles locked horns with Lord Rogers and the architects of Britain’s skyscraper boom yesterday, warning that historic cities are at risk of being wrecked by a “rash” of “carbuncles” in the form of office and apartment towers.

sustainability turns red … code red?

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I received alarming emails from Carbonequity and FoE today describing how a good many tipping points have been reached and that we are on the brink of a point of no return. On January 28th ClimateCodeRed will be published in Australia …

“Climate code red: the case for a sustainability emergency”. … will include responses from a wide range of climate activists and organisations as part of a conversation about how we can campaign for a very fast transition to a post-carbon, climate safe future.

(another nice carbon definer here – post-carbon )

Why is this relevant to a blog on built environment issues? Well…it can be argued that the failure global built environment sector (design, construction and buildings in use) to address and improve on energy performance, energy use, and energy loss is a highly significant contributor to the current situation. As building use energy inefficiently we put an increasing demand on energy production, largely a fossil fuel sourced energy that in itself adds to the problem.

A move from seeing sustainability as green to seeing it as red may start to focus our approach in a different way and just may force us to rethink – a colour paradigm switch !

Similar to Dave Hampton’s excellent think purple carbon – if carbon emissions were purple rather than invisible we would be living in a purple smog, with purple skies – and would have tackled sustainability a long time ago, in a much much more effective manner.

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recycling rubbish CD’s as road surface material

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Noted that troubled EMI over estimated the number of Robbie Williams Rudebox CD’s by a mere million. These are now reputedly to be shipped to China to be crushed for road surface material.

Typical of buyers over ordering, with the excess material being used as site access roads … but on a different scale.

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eco-friendly warehouses go carbon positive

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From the Guardian today

Warehouses aren’t normally associated with sustainability and environmentally friendliness; they are rather grey and anonymous looking. But a £50m scheme on a brownfield site at a former colliery in north Staffordshire is set to change this.

The project, called Blue Planet Chatterley Valley, is to be developed by Gazeley UK, which is owned by Asda Walmart, on 31 acres of former colliery land in Newcastle-under-Lyme. It will be a truly carbon positive development; the complex will have its own biofuel micro power station (using oilseed rape) and it will produce sufficient power and heat for the on-site buildings and a surplus which is enough energy for up to 650 local homes.

A new definition to savour here – ‘truly carbon positive‘ – brilliant

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best practice innovations and design schedule online

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The USGBC has published the LEEDS innovation and design credits schedule on line, giving all opportunity to view a listing of proven green building strategies that have been submitted and utilized by LEED Certified projects. (source) in design in construction technology and management and importantly in facilities management

Making a fascinating read with such innovations as:

Extend the useful life of an existing building and reduce construction waste by Moving an existing building from the site rather than demolish it in the course of this project

and

Conserve resources, and integrate the building and environment through Significantly reduce the use of raw materials and integrate site features with the natural environment. Avoid the fabrication, transportation and construction impacts by using locally recovered boulders; Use native raw materials to satisfy structural security requirements

and

Employee Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions through Analyze the CO2 emissions generated by employee automobile commuting: compare the actual employee/staff mileage traveled to a remodeled building on the existing site vs. several proposed sites for new construction. Convert mileage to CO2 emissions and Use the results to determine the final project location.

As described by the Building Design and Construction online site:

The LEED Rating System is the USGBC’s voluntary building certification program that defines high-performance green buildings, which are more environmentally responsible, healthier, and more profitable structures. LEED addresses a variety of buildings and building project types through individualized systems, including: new construction, existing buildings, commercial interiors, core & shell, homes and neighborhood development.

I need to check if the BREEAM scheme, ECO Homes and or Code assessments do or will publish similar schedules. If nothing else they make great reading and will spark innovative ideas.

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construction sustainability strategy not tough enough ?

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Whilst the consultant process is closed and BERR deliberate on the comments from industry, Mike Willoughby at Sustainability Blog notes that the M and E sector has joined the chorus of organisations and individuals in calling for more stringent measures within the strategy.

As reported at emonline:

The ECA and HVCA have criticised the government for failing to go further with its draft strategy for sustainable construction. According to the associations, a lack of suitable incentives and enforcement measures means the draft falls short of requirements.

Whilst the strategy needs to be comprehensive and meaningful, its timing (expected later this year) does seem to be behind the cue ball of other strategies, requirements, targets and messages coming out from  other government departments and agencies.

Will the tail be able to wag the dog I wonder?

no more greenbuild heros?

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The Guardian ran a list of the top  50 heros to save the planet on Saturday.  For an industry or sector that contributes to nearly 50% of the carbon emissions and 75% of energy use – it is really sad to see we have no real heros.

Of note though:

Aubrey Meyer: musician and activist. a 60-year-old South African violinist living in a flat in Willesden, north London,  Aubrey developed the Contraction and Convergence approach that is seriously challenging developing countries.

Oh and the RIBA sustainability strategy endorses C&C and recently made an award to Aubrey.

Meyer still plays the violin every day, but seldom with an orchestra. “I just did not realise that it would take quite so long to change the world,” he says.

Other mentions are Peter Head a director of Arup “master planner of the world’s first true eco city”  This you will recall won the Greenwash of 20067 award for the project that isnt. (very confusing )

and, Ken Yeang as the world’s leading green skyscraper architect and Lenardo Decaprio – for amongst others stuff  – building – Eco-Town,  a “model of green living”.

But to include Lomberg reduces the lists credibility – of the Great Warming Swindle school of thought, Lomberg is seen as a distorter of science and doing more harm than good to environmental causes

But where oh where are the green leaders and activists in our sector.  If you can think of anyone  you can join the debate  at The Guardian 

New coal fired power station gets go ahead

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The news that Medway Council have given the green light to a coal fired power station at Kingsnorth in Kent seems at complete odds with the current informed thinking on energy, on coal and on the current ‘mood’ or zeitgeist towards sustainability. It also appears as a developing country decision – not one taken by a nation attempting to be a leader in sustainability and carbon targets.  Building Guardian

The decision can be seen in many ways as a damning comment on the built industry in not moving fast enough to address the energy issue within buildings and facilities.

76 % of the energy from this new power plant will be consumed by buildings. By reducing building energy use of new and renovated buildings by a minimum of 50%, we negate the need for new coal plants. (source)

How can the government and local authorities push forward with zero carbon homes to Code 6, zero carbon schools, zero carbon non-domestic buildings, insist on reductions through Merton Rule approaches, and demand organisations reduce their carbon emissions … when in one action we turn the carbon emissions clock back 30 years ( This will be the first plant to be built in 30 years)

And many of these targets come in to place before the new plant comes on stream.

Perhaps the Kent council and others should read the work from the excellent and influential Architecture 2030, who, in the USA are directly and indirectly influencing cities and states to cancel or shelve coal fire plants in favour of a green build approach .

Emissions from the new plant will blow the UK’s targets and commitments for carbon reductions out of the water.  The notion of cleaned coal is an oxymoron, with environmentalists and scientists diasgreeing over the viability of any capture / claeaning / sequestration technology. It will take years and seems a high gamble to rely on a technology in the future.

In a time when we need positive actions and messages to prevent green fatigue – this will send a dangerous message – that it is ok to invest in traditional planet threatening energy sources whilst playing lip service to renewables and alternatives investment.

A very ominous start to 2008.

Cost of carbon

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A good note to end the year on and a new perspective on the cost of carbon to start 2008 with was reported in the Guardian last Friday. (also picked up by fellow blogger Phil at Some Seasonal Cheer ). Effectively ministers will now have to include a cost for carbon emission on all projects, starting at £25.50 a carbon tonne for 2007, rising every year to reach £59.60 a tonne by 2050. (This seems lower than other figures suggested!)

It will be interesting to see how this plays out through construction and fm – what would the additional cost of PFI’s, and BSF, building schools for the future projects etc now be. Would these costs be predicted over the life of a building. Can they be offset by carbon reducing measures built in?

And the Code – suddenly the cost of zero carbon homes may well be less than business as usual carbon construction.

Will the costs be applied to construction process emissions as well – and if so will this be tracked back up stream to the cement industry for example.

Not sure who actually will pay for these costs – the developers?, the supply side? the clients? More questions than answers at the moment, more detail is still to announced, but as this is a Treasury initiative it will surely be forced into being rapidly and with teeth. A whole new carbon based currency is being created.

Lets hope there is not a cop out by allowing offsets to offset these costs, and that the costs are real contributions to tackling sustainability

Whatever the detail,  we will start 2008 with a new, more meaningful perspective of sustainable construction, and more debates and discussion.

Brilliant.