What chance zero carbon commercial buildings?
June 2008
The Government’s fixation with zero carbon took another interesting turn in last month’s Budget. A consultation will be held this year on the timeline and feasibility for all new non-domestic buildings to be zero carbon by 2019.
This follows in the footsteps of the Code for Sustainable Homes which sets out the route to zero carbon new homes by 2016, and a similar timescale for zero carbon new schools and other public buildings.
But how realistic is it to expect all new commercial property to reach zero carbon by 2019? And is it the right ambition for the nation in the first place?
To answer this, perhaps we can get some clues by looking at UK housebuilders’ experience of zero carbon.
Here we sail gently into a warming swell of welcoming words… followed by an icy tidal wave of grief. For housebuilders are now realising the timescales are horribly short. Allowing for the time required to design, specify and fund a development of Code Level 6 new homes by 2016 actually means having all the answers to the zero carbon challenge by about 2012 – just four years from now. And housebuilders working in the social housing sector are having to learn even faster, producing Code Level 3 or 4 homes already.
A recent poll by Inbuilt among major housebuilders showed that they all welcomed the Government’s green ambitions and agreed absolutely that new build had its part to play. But the reality of delivering zero carbon was quite different. Their discomfort was palpable, expressed in warnings about the unrecoverable costs, the lack of reliable technologies, supply chain, skills or expertise, and the trouble accessing renewable energy sources.
At the moment the temptation for housebuilders to jump on the first technical bandwagon is enormous. Any supplier that claims to deliver a solution that meets the regulations and looks anything like affordable is doing rather well.
Unfortunately, many of these solutions are technical cul-de-sacs that deliver short-term shareholder value now but will ultimately cost a fortune to back out of. Like experiences in Canada and elsewhere, the route to such demanding new targets could end up being very costly – for housebuilders and home buyers alike.
In the UK commercial property sector, the challenges are even more demanding. Given the huge diversity of uses and the energy intensity of such buildings, can we honestly ever hope to deliver genuinely zero carbon outcomes?
Of course though, everything is possible. It just depends on your definition of success. So let’s look again at the housebuilding sector.
Unfortunately here again we find that the current definitions of ‘zero carbon’ in housing are highly problematic. There is no consensus within Government about what success looks like. That’s subject to yet another consultation this year.
But if the same definition of zero carbon currently used for housing is applied to new commercial buildings, with the same requirement for onsite renewable energy rather than access to certified additional renewable capacity via the national grid, then I fear we’re firmly in the realms of science fiction.
Having tough environmental targets is fine with me and, encouragingly, it’s generally supported by all our clients. We agree that there is a lot that can be done to mitigate energy demands, incorporate bioclimatic passive design solutions and achieve some elements of on-site energy generation on all sites, commercial and residential. There are many opportunities offered by nature to ventilate, heat, cool and illuminate our buildings, and cost savings to be made by designing out unnecessary technical complexity.
But before ‘Brand Zero’ gets any bigger, let’s stop and decide whether we are honestly aiming for the right target – or is the ‘best’ in danger of becoming the enemy of the good?
Take housebuilding again. We’re already seeing the perverse outcomes of an environmental agenda that is ill defined and risks ignoring the economic and social aspects of sustainability. We are at risk of ending up with zero carbon, Code Level 6 homes that are uneconomic to maintain, are built on flood plains, overheat in summer, have poor acoustic performance, poor indoor air quality or other unintended consequences. This will create a generation of homes that are unfit for people.
We can’t call this sustainability.
To reach a genuinely sustainable 2019, we need to undertake a full strategic review of our design and construction conventions. We need to get on with collaborative, multi-disciplinary, integrated team working like we’ve rarely seen before. We need to move towards ‘whole system thinking’ and more intelligent solutions.
Also, with over 70% of our 2050 building stock already constructed, we need a national strategic plan (with real carrots and sticks) to stimulate the take-up of cost effective energy efficiency measures within the existing stock.
Adopting this approach is the only sure way to avoid the ‘law of unintended consequences’ which strikes when projects take too narrow a focus, concentrating on saving energy, water or other resources rather than considering sustainability in the round.
Contact
Dr David Strong, Chief Executive, Inbuilt
Tel. +44 (0)1923 277000
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