Designing low carbon buildings : a framework to reduce energy consumption and embed the use of renewables

EU policies to mitigate climate change set ambitious goals for energy and carbon reduction for the built environment. In order meet and even exceed the EU targets the UK Government's Climate Change Act 2008 sets a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the UK by at least 80% from 1990 levels by 2050. To support these targets the UK government also aims to ensure that 20% of the UK's electricity is supplied from renewable sources by 2020. This article presents a design framework and a set of integrated IT tools to enable an analysis of the energy performance of building designs, including consideration of active and passive renewable energy technologies, when the opportunity to substantially improve the whole life-cycle energy performance of those designs is still open. To ensure a good fit with current architectural practices the design framework is integrated with the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) key stages, which is the most widely used framework for the delivery of construction projects. The main aims of this article are to illustrate the need for new approaches to support low carbon building design that can be integrated into current architectural practice, to present the design framework developed in this research and illustrate its application in a case study

Performance assessment of urban precinct design: a scoping study

Executive Summary: Significant advances have been made over the past decade in the development of scientifically and industry accepted tools for the performance assessment of buildings in terms of energy, carbon, water, indoor environment quality etc. For resilient, sustainable low carbon urban development to be realised in the 21st century, however, will require several radical transitions in design performance beyond the scale of individual buildings. One of these involves the creation and application of leading edge tools (not widely available to built environment professions and practitioners) capable of being applied to an assessment of performance across all stages of development at a precinct scale (neighbourhood, community and district) in either greenfield, brownfield or greyfield settings. A core aspect here is the development of a new way of modelling precincts, referred to as Precinct Information Modelling (PIM) that provides for transparent sharing and linking of precinct object information across the development life cycle together with consistent, accurate and reliable access to reference data, including that associated with the urban context of the precinct. Neighbourhoods are the ‘building blocks’ of our cities and represent the scale at which urban design needs to make its contribution to city performance: as productive, liveable, environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive places (COAG 2009). Neighbourhood design constitutes a major area for innovation as part of an urban design protocol established by the federal government (Department of Infrastructure and Transport 2011, see Figure 1). The ability to efficiently and effectively assess urban design performance at a neighbourhood level is in its infancy. This study was undertaken by Swinburne University of Technology, University of New South Wales, CSIRO and buildingSMART Australasia on behalf of the CRC for Low Carbon Living

Enabling low-carbon living in new UK housing developments

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to describe a tool (the Climate Challenge Tool) that allows house builders to calculate whole life carbon equivalent emissions and costs of various carbon and energy reduction options that can be incorporated into the design of new developments. Design/methodology/approach: The tool covers technical and soft (or lifestyle) measures for reducing carbon production and energy use. Energy used within the home, energy embodied in the building materials, and emissions generated through transport, food consumption and waste treatment are taken into account. The tool has been used to assess the potential and cost-effectiveness of various carbon reduction options for a proposed new housing development in Cambridgeshire. These are compared with carbon emissions from a typical UK household. Findings: The tool demonstrated that carbon emission reductions can be achieved at much lower costs through an approach which enables sustainable lifestyles than through an approach which focuses purely on reducing heat lost through the fabric of the building and from improving the heating and lighting systems. Practical implications: The tool will enable house builders to evaluate which are the most cost-effective measures that they can incorporate into the design of new developments in order to achieve the significant energy savings and reduction in carbon emissions necessary to meet UK Government targets and to avoid dangerous climate change. Originality/value: Current approaches to assessing carbon and energy reduction options for new housing developments concentrate on energy efficiency options such as reducing heat lost through the fabric of the building and improving the heating and lighting systems, alongside renewable energy systems. The Climate Challenge Tool expands the range of options that might be considered by developers to include those affecting lifestyle choices of future residents. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited

How much do we spend to save? Calculating the embodied carbon costs of retrofit

The drive to reduce carbon emissions from domestic housing has led to a recent shift of focus from new-build to retrofit. However there are two significant differences. Firstly more work is needed to retrofit existing housing to the same energy efficiency standards as new-build. Secondly the remaining length of service life is potentially shorter. This implies that the capital expenditure – both financial and carbon - of retrofit may be disproportionate to the savings gained over the remaining life. However the Government’s definition of low and zero carbon continues to exclude the capital (embodied) carbon costs of construction, which has resulted in a lack of data for comparison. The paper addresses this gap by reporting the embodied carbon costs of retrofitting four individual pilot properties in Rampton Drift, part of an Eco-Town Demonstrator Project in Cambridgeshire. Through collecting details of the materials used and their journeys from manufacturer to site, the paper conducts a ‘cradle-to-gate’ life cycle carbon assessment for each property. The embodied carbon figures are calculated using a software tool being developed by the Centre for Sustainable Development at the University of Cambridge. The key aims are to assess the real embodied carbon costs of retrofit of domestic properties, and to test the new tool; it is hoped that the methodology, the tool and the specific findings will be transferable to other projects. Initial changes in operational energy as a result of the retrofit works will be reported and compared with the embodied carbon costs when presenting this paper

Refocusing sustainability education: using students’ reflections on their carbon footprint to reinforce the importance of considering CO2 production in the construction industry

The construction industry is the most significant contributor to the UK’s CO2 emissions. It is responsible for an annual output of approximately 45% of the total. This figure highlights the role the industry must play in helping to achieve the UK Government’s CO2 reduction target. It is ergo incumbent on construction-related educators to emphasise this issue and explore ways in which it can be achieved. Unintentional desensitisation has resulted in the term ‘sustainability’, particularly CO2 production, being seen by students as just another concept to be studied from a theoretical perspective. Many students fail to grasp its broader implications and how it should affect strategic environmental decisions about construction processes, technologies, and products. In an attempt to address this problem, an innovative learning, teaching, and assessment strategy was used with final year undergraduate construction students to improve their level of sustainability literacy. The theory of threshold concepts in the context of transformative learning was used as the baseline philosophy to the study. The approach involved asking students to calculate their carbon footprint and to reflect upon and extrapolate their findings to the construction industry and its practice. Content analysis was performed on the reflective commentaries acquired from student portfolios collected over four academic years. The results showed how the students’ reflections on their carbon footprints proved to be an enlightening experience. Terms such as ‘shocked by my footprint’, ‘surprised at the findings’, and ‘change in attitude’ were among the contemplative comments. When students linked their findings to the construction industry, phrases such as ‘waste generation’, ‘technologies’, and ‘materials’ were some of the concepts considered. By using their personal experiences as a benchmark, students were able to gain a deeper level of understanding of the causes and consequences of CO2 production. They also found it more straightforward to relate these issues to the construction industry and its practice. Several novel recommendations are made to raise the level of sustainability literacy in the construction industry thereby facilitating a potential reduction in worldwide CO2 production

Sea level rise adaptation: emerging lessons for local policy development

Many coastal communities across the United States are beginning to plan for climate-related sea level rise. While impacts and solutions will vary with local conditions, jurisdictions which have begun this process seem to pass through three common stages when developing policy for local sea level rise adaptation: l) building awareness about local sea level rise threats, 2) undertaking analyses of local vulnerabilities, and 3) developing plans and policies to deal with these vulnerabilities. The purpose of this paper is to help advance community dialogue and further inform local decision-makers about key elements and steps for addressing climate-related sea level rise. It summarizes the results of a project the Marine Policy Institute (MPI) undertook during 2011-12 to review experiences from fourteen U.S. coastal jurisdictions representing a variety of city, county, and state efforts with sea level adaptation. There are many more initiatives underway than those reflected in this sample, but the “focus jurisdictions” were selected because of the extensive information publically available on their experiences and lessons being learned that could provide insights for coastal communities, especially in Southwest Florida

The PFI Sustainability Evaluation Tool: A methodology for evaluating of sustainability within PFI housing projects

In the UK there is a need to provide more housing in order to meet increased demand. The problem is particularly acute in the social housing sector. There is also a drive to reduce CO2 emissions from housing, whilst addressing issues of social sustainability. Accordingly governments have sought to combine the goals of sustainable development with housing policy in order to provide not just more housing, but more sustainable housing. In a time of public sector expenditure restraint the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) has been used as a means to procure social housing using private money, however sustainability within PFI housing projects has received little attention. This paper introduces a methodology for evaluating sustainability within PFI bids. Developed and tested during the procurement stage of a large PFI housing project in the North East of England, results suggest that the introduction of clear, transparent and robust evaluation criteria can enhance sustainability

Thermal improvement of existing dwellings

This report describes the outcome from a study to determine the impact of energy efficiency measures applied to the Scottish housing stock. Assuming conventional property type classifications, the present performance of the housing stock is quantified using available survey data. Building simulation techniques were then employed to generate a Web-based, decision-support tool for use by policy makers to estimate the impact of deploying energy efficiency measures in different combinations over time. The process of tool formulation is described and an example is given of tool use to identify best-value retrofitting options while taking factors such as future climate change and improved standard of living into account