Building a better future: An exploration of beliefs about climate change and perceived need for adaptation within the building industry

Copyright © 2011 Elsevier. NOTICE: this is the author’s version of a work that was accepted for publication in Building and Environment . Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as peer review, editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document. Changes may have been made to this work since it was submitted for publication. A definitive version was subsequently published in Building and Environment Vol. 46 (2011), DOI: 10.1016/j.buildenv.2010.12.007The present research explored beliefs about climate change among an important yet relatively understudied population: representatives of the building industry. We also assessed the perceived adequacy of current climate-related actions within the industry and the perceived need for developing new practices. The results of a survey administered within a large engineering firm suggest a fairly high level of concern about climate issues within this sector: participants perceived climate change to be an important issue, current practices to be inadequate, and a need to develop new ways of addressing climate change. Despite this, there was notable and consequential variability in how participants thought about climate change. Higher levels of seniority were associated with greater satisfaction with current practices, and the belief that climate change was a natural rather than man-made phenomena was associated with a reduced support for the idea that changes to current practices were necessary. In addition, when thinking about climate relevant actions (whether current practices or the alternatives) participants focussed almost exclusively on mitigation rather than adaptation. The implications of these patterns for innovation around climate change within the building industry are discussed.EPSR

Building resilience to overheating into 1960's UK hospital buildings within the constraint of the national carbon reduction target: Adaptive strategies

The National Health Service (NHS) Estate in England includes 18.83 Mm2 of acute hospital accommodation, distributed across 330 sites. Vulnerability to overheating is clear with 15,000 excess deaths occurring nationally during the July 2003 heatwave. The installation of mechanical cooling in existing hospitals appears to be the inevitable recommendation from NHS patient safety risk assessments but the carbon implications would undermine the NHS Carbon Reduction Strategy. NHS CO2 emissions constitute 25% of all public sector emissions, equivalent to 3% of the UK total. In the post-2008 economic climate, the likelihood of wholesale replacement of the NHS Estate is significantly diminished; refurbishment is now of increasing interest to the Trusts that together make up the NHS. The research project ‘Design and Delivery of Robust Hospital Environments in a Changing Climate’ seeks to understand the environmental performance of the current NHS Estate and, from this, to establish its resilience. To this end, hospital buildings operated by four NHS Trusts are being monitored and simulated using dynamic thermal models calibrated against measured data. Adaptive refurbishment options are proposed and their relative performance predicted against the existing internal conditions, energy demands and CO2 emissions. This paper presents findings relating to one representative type building, a medium-rise ward block dating from the late 1960s. It shows that this particular type may have more resilience in the current climate than might have been expected, that it will remain resilient into the 2030s, and that relatively non-invasive measures would extend and increase its resilience whilst saving energ

An Investigation into GHG and non-GHG Impacts of Double Skin Façades in Office Refurbishments: Low-Carbon Refurbishment with Double Skin Façades

The building sector is a major contributor to energy consumption, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and depletion of natural resources. In developed countries, existing buildings represent the majority of the stock, their low-carbon refurbishment hence being one of the most sensible ways to mitigate GHG emissions and reduce environmental impacts of the construction sector. This article has investigated and established the GHG and non-GHG life cycle impacts of several double skin façade (DSF) configurations for office refurbishments by means of a parametric comparative life cycle assessment against up-to-standard single skin façade (SSF) refurbishment solutions. Two different methods were used to assess both GHG emissions and other environmental impacts. Results show that if, on the one hand, most of the DSF configurations assessed actually reduce GHG emissions compared to SSFs over their life cycle—thus supporting a wider adoption of DSFs for low-carbon refurbishments—on the other hand, there exist non-negligible ecological and environmental impacts that the DSF generates, specifically in terms of some materials of the structure and their final disposal. Research attention is thus needed regarding the environmental impacts of the materials used for DSFs and not only in minimizing the energy consumption of the operational phase