Assessing initial embodied energy in UK non-domestic construction projects

There is an increasing need to reduce energy consumption to tackle the adverse effects of climate change. The UK government has established numerous directives and policies to encourage carbon dioxide (CO2) emission and energy reduction within the non-domestic sector. However these measures are primarily focused towards reducing operational energy (i.e. energy used during building occupier activity), largely overlooking initial embodied energy. The trend towards reduced operational energy consumption due to energy efficient design is leading initial embodied energy to become a more significant part of project life cycle energy. Initial embodied energy relates to the energy use during the material, transportation and construction phases up to project practical completion, which is of keen interest to contractors due to their significant role in project procurement and delivery. Opportunities to address project life cycle energy are typically identified through a Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). However at present there is little validated data, no coherent method for data capture and limited incentive for project stakeholders to address initial embodied energy consumption. In response, this research project presents a contractor s practical approach towards assessing initial embodied energy consumption within UK non-domestic construction projects. An action research methodological approach enabled the assessment and potential reduction of initial embodied energy to be explored within a large principal contractor through five research cycles which included diagnosing and action planning, action taking, evaluating and specified learning. A comprehensive framework is designed to highlight the significance of initial embodied energy consumption relative to specific construction packages, activities and sub-contractors. This framework is then explored within three UK non-domestic construction projects (i.e. two industrial warehouses and one commercial office). Capturing information from live projects enables practical challenges and opportunities inherent when addressing initial embodied energy consumption to be identified. A series of contractor current practices are reviewed, and subsequently improved, to enhance their compliance with the framework requirements. The findings emphasise the importance of material phase impacts, especially construction packages which primarily contain steel and concrete-based materials (i.e. ground and upper floor, external slab and frame). The importance of project type, site area, building lifespan and waste consumption are also recognised to reduce initial embodied energy consumption. The framework provides a practical approach for initial embodied energy assessment which can readily be adopted to help highlight further opportunities to reduce energy consumption. The research project concludes by presenting a number of recommendations for consideration by the construction industry and associated stakeholders, along with requirements for future research

Accounting for non-annuitization

Why don't people buy annuities? Several explanations have been provided by the previous literature: large fraction of preannuitized wealth in retirees' portfolios; adverse selection; bequest motives; and medical expense uncertainty. This paper uses a quantitative model to assess the importance of these impediments to annuitization and also studies three newer explanations: government safety net in terms of means-tested transfers; illiquidity of housing wealth; and restrictions on minimum amount of investment in annuities. This paper shows that quantitatively the last three explanations play a big role in reducing annuity demand. The minimum consumption floor turns out to be important to explain the lack of annuitization, especially for people in lower income quintiles, who are well insured by this provision. The minimum annuity purchase requirement involves big upfront investment and is binding for many, especially if housing wealth cannot be easily annuitized. Among the traditional explanations, preannuitized wealth has the largest quantitative contribution to the annuity puzzle.Accounting

Guide to using Evidence in Higher Education

This Guide to Using Evidence has been designed to, to support and encourage students and students’ association and union staff to actively engage with data and evidence. It offers an accessible introduction to a range of key ideas and concepts and a range of activities which allow readers to develop their own thinking and confidence in key areas. The ambition of its authors, QAA Scotland and the students who reviewed early drafts, is that students and students’ association and union staff will reach for this resource as they prepare for committees, devise new campaigns, deliver services, and do all of the other things they do to enhance students’ experiences and outcomes. Underpinning all of this is a belief that students themselves, the institutions they are working with, and the sector as a whole, are better served when students are, and are seen to be, agents in the ‘data landscape’, not just subjects of it. Engaging with this Guide will help students and students’ association and union staff to develop that sense of agency in themselves and foster it in others. This Guide is a product of a student-led project coordinated by QAA Scotland as part of the Evidence for Enhancement Theme (2017-20)

ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks: a literature review

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementation is a complex and vibrant process, one that involves a combination of technological and organizational interactions. Often an ERP implementation project is the single largest IT project that an organization has ever launched and requires a mutual fit of system and organization. Also the concept of an ERP implementation supporting business processes across many different departments is not a generic, rigid and uniform concept and depends on variety of factors. As a result, the issues addressing the ERP implementation process have been one of the major concerns in industry. Therefore ERP implementation receives attention from practitioners and scholars and both, business as well as academic literature is abundant and not always very conclusive or coherent. However, research on ERP systems so far has been mainly focused on diffusion, use and impact issues. Less attention has been given to the methods used during the configuration and the implementation of ERP systems, even though they are commonly used in practice, they still remain largely unexplored and undocumented in Information Systems research. So, the academic relevance of this research is the contribution to the existing body of scientific knowledge. An annotated brief literature review is done in order to evaluate the current state of the existing academic literature. The purpose is to present a systematic overview of relevant ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks as a desire for achieving a better taxonomy of ERP implementation methodologies. This paper is useful to researchers who are interested in ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Results will serve as an input for a classification of the existing ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks. Also, this paper aims also at the professional ERP community involved in the process of ERP implementation by promoting a better understanding of ERP implementation methodologies and frameworks, its variety and history

Big data for monitoring educational systems

This report considers “how advances in big data are likely to transform the context and methodology of monitoring educational systems within a long-term perspective (10-30 years) and impact the evidence based policy development in the sector”, big data are “large amounts of different types of data produced with high velocity from a high number of various types of sources.” Five independent experts were commissioned by Ecorys, responding to themes of: students' privacy, educational equity and efficiency, student tracking, assessment and skills. The experts were asked to consider the “macro perspective on governance on educational systems at all levels from primary, secondary education and tertiary – the latter covering all aspects of tertiary from further, to higher, and to VET”, prioritising primary and secondary levels of education

To share or not to share: Publication and quality assurance of research data outputs. A report commissioned by the Research Information Network

A study on current practices with respect to data creation, use, sharing and publication in eight research disciplines (systems biology, genomics, astronomy, chemical crystallography, rural economy and land use, classics, climate science and social and public health science). The study looked at data creation and care, motivations for sharing data, discovery, access and usability of datasets and quality assurance of data in each discipline