Attitudes and behaviours of private sector landlords towards the energy efficiency of tenanted homes

The UK’s housing stock generates approximately 27 per cent of the country's total annual carbon emissions. In light of the legally binding targets to reduce carbon emissions, new housing is subject to a tightening of regulations governing energy demand and efficiency resulting in a gradual improvement in carbon emissions. The question is how to achieve the deep carbon emission reductions from existing domestic properties, of which 75 per cent will still be in use in 2050. Government has sought to provide incentives to homeowners to improve the energy efficiency of their households, and mandate improvements in socially rented housing using a range of fiscal measures, most recently the ‘Green Deal’. There has however been little consideration of the 18 per cent of UK households who privately rent their home, a tenure that is growing fast. The aim of this research is to investigate the factors that influence private sector landlords when considering energy efficiency improvements to their tenanted homes. The results indicate that Government policy has consistently failed to engage private sector landlords in the issue of energy efficiency and thus measures must be taken to understand the motivations of landlords in order to design effective incentives and interventions

Building the future: integrating building information management and environmental assessment methodologies

The demand for sustainable buildings is increasing driven in part by legislation, rising energy costs and growing environmental concerns amongst consumers. As a result clients and developers are increasingly seeking to incorporate environmental attributes into buildings and demonstrate these sustainability credentials by certifying a development using an environmental assessment methodology such as BREEAM or LEED. One of the major issues in delivering sustainable buildings is ensuring that measures incorporated into a building at design stage are translated into action during building construction. This disconnect between design and construction phases of a project often results in the need to undertake costly remedial measures to achieve a targeted sustainability rating, or the building failing the assessment. This paper suggests that by integrating BIM with Environmental Assessment Methodologies decisions made with regard to sustainability attributes at the design stage can be clearly communicated and understood by all involved in the buildings specification and construction. It introduces a conceptual framework that seeks to define the relationship between BIM and EAMs

Environmental capacity building through knowledge transfer partnerships

This paper describes the need for organisations to develop adaptive capacity in the face of environmental challenges. It argues that "knowledge transfer" can provide a useful mechanism for developing this environmental adaptive capacity and outlines the experiences of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership between North Tyneside Council and Northumbria University. Initial findings from the partnership suggest that the knowledge and skills transferred to the local authority through knowledge transfer, are already building capacity within the organisation, and beginning to filter down to private sector companies involved with the authority and the communities who they represent

Re-imagining the Iron Triangle: Embedding Sustainability into Project Constraints

Since the emergence of the formal discipline of project management, academics and practitioners have sought to define criteria against which project success can be measured. Perhaps the most well known criteria are encapsulated in the ‘Iron Triangle’ that places Cost Time and Quality at the center of project success. However it has been suggested that whilst this triple constraint is important, it can also narrow the focus away from other crucial project success factors. One area that is gaining prominence within the field of project management is the consideration of sustainability principles and there is an increasing understanding of the need to develop methods, tools and techniques to integrate sustainability criteria into the management of projects. This paper presents the results of an empirical study in which project managers were asked to re-draw the traditional Iron Triangle with the inclusion of sustainability. The results of the study indicate that whist sustainability is seen by practitioners as a key factor to be included in project planning and implementation, there is disagreement as to where the issue sits in relation to traditional time, cost, quality constraints and how sustainability principles should be integrated into projects

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

Newcastle Business School Principles for Responsible Management Education: Sharing Information on Progress 2017

This is the first SIP report from Newcastle Business School, Northumbria Univeristy. IT details our journey over the last two years which has seen us redevelop our curriculum to incorporate ethics, responsibility and sustainability; establish our 'responsible business' research area and partner with leading organisations on responsible business. Achievements Curriculum Integration in the Field of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Newcastle Business School is embarking on an ambitious project that seeks to align the school’s activities with the principles of responsible management, corporate social responsibility, business ethics and sustainability. Some progress in this area has already been made. All undergraduate business students study the core Applied Business Ethics module and work has begun to develop two core Responsible Business Leadership and Sustainable Strategy Modules to be delivered initially to level 6 completion degree students. Additionally, all our accounting and finance postgraduate students study a core module on ethics, corporate governance and socially responsible Investment, whilst our business with management Masters students have an option to study a CSR for Multinationals module. We recognise however that much more work in this area is required. In order to achieve this, the school has begun a wide-ranging review of our entire undergraduate, postgraduate and executive education with the aim of revising curricula and programme design to create a new portfolio of courses relevant to a new generation of business leaders. The integration of PRME principles throughout the curricula will be a key focus of this project. Finally, as a means to begin the work of creating a culture of responsible management education within the School, we are planning to hold a small student conference focussing on ethics, CSR, sustainability and responsible management topics. Achievements Research Development in the Field of Corporate Responsibility and Sustainability Newcastle Business School has a growing reputation in the fields of Business Ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility and other Sustainability related research areas. In a review of publications in Business Ethics journals from 1999-2008, Northumbria was ranked as the seventh most productive UK University for publications in Business Ethics (53rd world-wide). The School is building upon this reputation through the work of the recently convened Risk, Responsibility, Ethics and Governance Research Interest Group comprised of more than 50 active members making it the largest of our research groups. Evidence also suggests that students are increasingly choosing to study corporate responsibility and sustainability through their undergraduate and postgraduate dissertations in addition to the more than 20 PhD and Professional Doctorates being undertaken within these topics. The School has a strong track record in working with companies to assist in their knowledge development in these areas. For example, we are undertaking a 3 year collaborative research project with a local Water Utility company addressing how to embed sustainability through working more closely with stakeholders and we recently co-hosted the first Responsible Business Conference in our region. We plan to build upon this progress through the development of new strategic research themes, one of which is expected to incorporate corporate responsibility and sustainability topics. In addition to this we are seeking to build on our current partnership work with other industry and academic organisations to collaborate on research outputs and develop funding bids, create additional strategic partnerships with key business organisations to explore jointly effective approaches to meeting social and environmental challenges

Project Management as if the World Matters: At the Intersection of Sustainable Development and Project Management

Issues such as global climate change, poverty and inequity, and the unsustainable use of resources are becoming more commonly understood amongst the public, governments and organisations. As a result the pressure on businesses to incorporate the principles of sustainable development into policies and activities is mounting. Over the last 50 years, the discipline of project management has matured, the tools of which are increasingly used to deliver specific organisational objectives and introduce or improve new or existing products and services. The traditional definition of a project is an endeavour with a defined beginning and end, undertaken to meet unique goals and objectives. This definition would seem to be at odds with definitions of sustainable development that aim to recognise the long-term nature of environmental or societal impacts arising from business activities. In order to address this apparent dichotomy a new paradigm of project management that both implicitly and explicitly incorporates social, economic and environmental issues is emerging. The concept of sustainable project management is relatively new, but its role in contributing to sustainable development is increasingly gaining interest amongst project management professionals and academics. This paper will introduce the concept of sustainable project management and report on current research that seeks to re-define the relationship between project management and sustainability

Topology of Fracture Networks

We propose a mapping from fracture systems consisting of intersecting fracture sheets in three dimensions to an abstract network consisting of nodes and links. This makes it possible to analyze fracture systems with the methods developed within modern network theory. We test the mapping for two-dimensional geological fracture outcrops and find that the equivalent networks are small-world and dissasortative. By anlayzing the Discrete Fracture Network model, which is used to generate artifical fracture networks, we also find small world networks. However, the networks turn out to be assortative.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

Balancing Projects with Society and the Environment: A Project, Programme and Portfolio Approach

AbstractIssues such as global climate change, poverty & inequity, and the unsustainable use of resources are driving organisations to incorporate the principles of sustainable development into strategy and operations. Recently project management has drawn criticism of lacking sufficient governance to respond to such issues and the local interpretation and lessons learned have had little success in addressing this. Whilst sustainability principles can be actively influenced, encouraged and monitored through project portfolio programme and project management, there are often problems with translating vision and strategy into project practice. Here we suggest that portfolio and programme management presents an opportunity to integrate visionary and strategic sustainability with operational sustainability. Moreover a programme and portfolio approach can lead to enhanced opportunity to share sustainability practice between projects Therefore sustainability has to be an integrated part of Portfolio, Programme and Project processes to support and achieve the objectives of an organisation. Here the governance of organisational practice and the triple bottom line interlinks the processes to support the operational strategy of an organisation