Category Archives: sustainability

at last … low cost solar power that works in the (Welsh) rain…

Leave a reply

Excellent article in today’s Guardian reports on the innovative approaches being taken by G24 Innovations in Cardiff to revolutionise solar power panels.

This is just the innovation that the drive towards green, self generated energy for the built environment needs.

… those behind the Welsh operation think they may have made a crucial breakthrough. Their solar cell works in a different way from most, and is not based on silicon – the expensive raw material for conventional solar cells. G24 Innovations (G24i), the company making the new cells, says it can produce and sell them for about a fifth of the price of silicon-based versions. At present, it makes only small-scale chargers for equipment such as mobile phones and MP3 players. But it says larger panels could follow – large enough to replace polluting fossil fuels by generating electricity for large buildings.

and the applications could be wide ranging, with many safety related uses on building sites…

Design students have also been involved with the development process. Earlier this year, the company ran a competition with 45 product design students at St Martin’s college of art and design in London, who were asked to think up new uses for the Cardiff solar cells. The winning entries include portable safety lights mounted on life buoys, and lamps to mark scaffolding and hoardings around roadworks and on building sites. They also featured solar-powered security lights, fire exit signs, and window blinds, which could cut electricity use.

and addresses the social, global need for energy

The first commercial uses are likely to be in the developing world, where access to electricity is difficult. The firm is working with mobile phone companies including Nokia and Motorola to test whether the G24i cells could charge handsets in rural Africa. For £6-£8, he says, the company can supply a flexible strip of solar cells that can produce 0.4 to 0.5W of power. It’s a relatively meagre output, but more than enough for at least 10 minutes of phone calls a day. And that, says Betzel, can make a big difference. “Over two billion people live without access to energy. This isn’t about providing expensive, Rolls Royce- quality solutions. It’s about improving their quality of life.” Similar solar chargers made of silicon cost about £30.

Affordable Zero Carbon Homes…

Leave a reply

The Cooperative Bank has teamed up with Living Space 21 to provide a new green solution to housing.  From the press release (7th August):

Co-operative Bank sponsors ground breaking green housing initiative

Tackling climate change and providing affordable housing for first time buyers are the biggest challenges facing the British housing market today. With this is mind; the Cooperative Bank has teamed up with Living Space 21, a new housing developer, to offer homes that are not only eco-friendly but, also within reach of those starting out on the property ladder.

This exciting new partnership directly addresses the Government’s promise to increase the UK’s house-building programme by 20%, which would provide an additional 3 million homes by 2020. Furthermore, with the Housing Green Paper 2007 setting targets to reduce property carbon emissions by 25% by 2010, these new homes, which have inbuilt eco features will be well placed to help meet this objective.

The eco benefits of these homes include timber frames, sourced from sustainable forests, rain water capture and recycling, plus sloped roofs which maximise solar efficiency. However, these features do not in any way comprise the quality or design of the build. The contemporary apartments have been designed by Living Space 21 and their pioneering building techniques enable them to be tailored to almost any location, leaving the lightest environmental footprint possible for the price.

Fit for people planet and purpose

Leave a reply

A recent post to the worldchanging site (Non Energy Benefits …in Buildings) reminds us of the other, arguably more important, benefits that arise from improved environmental performance of our building and built environment.   It has long been recognised that improved envionments lead to improved performance, comfort, health and well being, yet some how this has been lost in our head-on rush to address carbon, carbon and more carbons.

There is always the need to balance our approaches, ensuring a balanced triple bottom line – ie that of environmental, social and economics, or as was in common use a few years back, fit for people, planet and purpose.  (I do still like the Patrick Geddes triptych of Folk, Place and Work, he agrued amongst other issues, that all design and particulary planning should benefit folk, place and work in equal measures)

Flood lessons to drive innovation?

Leave a reply

“We live in a culture in which developers and the construction industry are allowed to plunder the present, leaving everyone else to pay for tomorrow’s mess.”

Alan Simpson. MP (lab) for Nottingham South, writing in the Guardian (pour response) yesterday makes a strong case for our ‘built environment’ industry to learn real lessons from the floods, particulary from european practices.

He cites examples such as:

In the Ljburg district of Amsterdam, floating houses have been built. Not far away, on the floodplain of Maasbommel, the Dutch are building permanently floating and amphibious homes. Anchored to mooring piles rather than fixed into foundations, the concrete-based homes rise and fall with flood water levels. Wiring and sewage is ducted through the mooring piles. In the newest, changes in water level are used to generate electricity to make the houses energy self-sufficient.

Looking forward to the construction of the 3m homes, many of which will be on flood plain areas…we do need a radical, not step change, approach to housing design, and in doing so using lessons from the recent floods as a catalyst for delivering the sustainable home of the future.

Existing housing stock and climate change – your views?

Leave a reply

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

Leave a reply

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…

Leave a reply

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 …

Leave a reply

… 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)

Leave a reply

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

Leave a reply

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?