Since August 2006 this resource has been available and I failed to mention it until now. http://maps.restats.org.uk
From the press release: The collection of renewable energy statistics – began in 1989 via a project carried out by ETSU (now FES – a part of AEA Technology Environment) on behalf of the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Statistical Office of the European Communities (SOEC, also referred to as Eurostat). The project identified all relevant renewable energy sources and, where possible, information was collected on the amounts of energy derived from each. The database now contains 17 years of data from 1989 to 2005. RESTATS currently holds information on heat and electricity generated from all the following sources:
* Biofuels, including the combustion of biomass and wastes, co-firing, gas from landfill sites and digestion processes
* Hydro-electricity, both large and small-scale
* Wave power
* Wind turbines and wind-farms – onshore and offshore
* Solar – active solar heating and photovoltaics
* Geothermal aquifers
Information contained in the RESTATS database provides support to Government and Industry in a range of activities related to renewable energy. In particular, it is perhaps the most reliable means by which the success of the UK New and Renewable Energy Programme can be measured and monitored. More info at http://www.restats.org.uk
mel starrs Uncategorized Biofuels, electricity, Energy, renewable energy, renewable energy locations, renewable energy sources, renewable energy statistics, Statistical Office of the European Communities, Sustainability, UK Department, United Kingdom
There is a wealth of information available at the LEP website including ‘Towards Zero Carbon Developments’ (pdf 108 pages from July 2006). The document proposes a definition of a zero carbon development as:
A zero carbon development is one that achieves zero net carbon emissions from energy use on site, on an annual basis.
Excluded are embodied energy in construction and demolition and transport energy.
What I would be interested in tracking down is any studies giving energy balance calculations comparing the embodied energy inputs (including transport costs) for a renewable option which gives a net zero carbon effect over the life of the development (say 60 years) to a slightly less sexy low energy route (condensing boilers etc.)? Of course, as costs come down and manufacturing techniques improve, it gets harder to compare as in 20 years time when the development needs to replace the boilers or the PVs, the estimate of embodied energy we make today could be wildly wrong. If anyone has seen such a study done or published, please drop me a line by email or in the comments.
mel starrs Uncategorized embodied energy, embodied energy inputs, Energy, energy use, less sexy low energy route, studies giving energy balance calculations, Sustainability, transport energy
(another slightly out of date post – I liked my point about nat vent buildings though, so I’ve posted it anyway)
Via It’s the Environment, Stupid evidence Allianz/WWF (October 2006, pdf, 46 pages) plus Lloyd’s (pdf, 17 pages) are taking notice of climate change.
The only overt reference to the built environment within the Lloyd’s report is to that of overheating of buildings. This is an obvious concern, especially if it is already too late to halt the rise in global temperatures. Buildings designed at the end of the last century for natural ventilation may not be able to cope with elevated temperatures in the future.
The Allianz report has some interesting glimpses of what could happen soon:
…a new property insurance policy for LEED or Green Globes Certified buildings. This new coverage will specifically apply to the unique attributes of green buildings not covered by conventional property policies, such as solar panels, green roofs, and recycled water supply systems. Because green buildings are proven to be less prone to water damage, electrical fires, or full loss due to fire, FFIC will offer a rate credit of 5% to these building owners.
mel starrs Uncategorized Allianz, Insurance companies taking notice, property insurance policy, recycled water supply systems, Sustainability
I love blogging. There are those who believe that it can be a little one sided, but for me, I find it an infinitely better communication tool than say, a letters page in a magazine, or even email. Case in point, last week I expressed disappointment at Bovis’ BREEAM targets.
Andrew Kinsey (their senior environmental manager) dropped me an email with their press release, which goes into much more detail. It appears Building magazine may have slightly under-reported the facts. From the press release:
Design – All new build projects and major refurbishments of £5million or more in contract value achieve a minimum BREEAM VERY GOOD rating or equivalent and where our client’s aspiration meets our own aspiration of BREEAM Excellent or equivalent, we will deliver this rating by 2010.
That’s better. And whilst I still think it’s a pragmatic, rather than trail-burning approach, I am impressed with the quality of the conversation we were able to have in a relatively short space of time.
Andrew is either scouring the internet for mentions of Bovis (by using keywords like I descibe here and here) or he’s a regular reader. Every firm should be monitoring the internet for mentions of their name and responding in a timely and level-headed manner to those criticisms or comments. It’s so easy to do, there really is no excuse not to.
Next time, I’d like to see Andrew (or whoever) drop a comment direct on to the blog, so when people come across the article in the future, they can see the response. So perhaps blogging isn’t quite a conversation – but it does give the opportunity for comment and response, archived together for however long the page continues to exist in cyberspace…
mel starrs Uncategorized Andrew Kinsey, Blogging, BREEAM, communication tool
(another article I found sitting forlornly in my draft bucket since March for no apparent reason – late but not out of date)
Dave Pollard has posted another excellent post on KM. The scary thing is how many of the things he says not to do, I have seen done at various (or many) employers. Including:
- Directories of everyone and everything, rather than key people (not sure I agree with him here -it’s always good to look up colleagues in other offices on screen, especially when phoning having never met them)
- Self-appointed experts – this I have seen and it renders the entire system useless. He advocates other’s voting for who is expert on things. A kind of Digg for expertise.
- Using email for all electronic communication. Another favourite of mine. A particular gem is the email sent to tell everyone something has been published on the intranet. Gah! My rule of thumb – only send emails when there is an action. Use other tools such as Intranets or RSS for FYI’s. Give everyone an RSS reader and show them how to use it. Publish all the intranet information with RSS feeds. Then they can manage their own inbox, deciding when and where to process the FYI’s.
The tools exist to make this stuff easy. The theory is proven. Implementation – not so good. It’s worth remembering that the ubiquitous email hasn’t been with us all that long. How did it manage to get such a pervasive hold on everyone?
mel starrs Uncategorized Dave Pollard, Knowledge, knowledge management, Management, Productivity
I have BREEAM set as a key word in Google, Technorati, Topix, del.icio.us and Bloglines – if anyone writes BREEAM on the internet, I get notification of it (hey – you all know what a geek I am by now). Which is how I found this OT (off-topic) discussion on BREEAM at SingleTrack magazine. I like the guy’s opening gambit:
anyone know where i can get enough information to be be able to get the customer off my back?
Other gems I have discovered include Miller claiming BREEAM can make buildings 60% more expensive (WTF? ), 200 LEED Gold buildings in the US , a fascinating discussion on PVC windows in which BREEAM seems to be the enemy, an article in this month’s Building and Environment (subs only), my personal favourite from a Chinese blogger who believes “LEED works best in China not just because Americans are smart in business”, a manufacturer/supplier misunderstanding the scoring system for BREEAM Industrial , Green Globes (apparently an offshot of BREEAM, which I hadn’t heard before – I thought it was purly US based) trying to outdo LEED , BREEAM for Offices catching on in the Birmingham Grade A market and finally Dubai Maritime City is imposing BREEAM or LEED as standard.
Coverage is definitely increasing with time…
mel starrs Uncategorized BREEAM, China, Dubai Maritime City, Google, United States
Another funny architecture blog – this time at Part IV . Who knew these creatures had a sense of humour…
mel starrs Uncategorized Blogging
Some good news on BIM from Building Design + Construction (A US publication).
The rate at which newcomers join the ranks of BIM users has been increasing, FMI reported. BIM usage grew by three percent in 2003, six percent in 2005 and 11 percent in 2006, the study found.
A white paper from CMAA is also available:
CMAA’s Emerging Technologies Committee has prepared a white paper on Building Information Modeling and is soliciting member comments on the draft as part of its ongoing effort to support CMs and firms in adopting BIM.
We had some good discussion on BIM earlier in the month. I love the point Martin makes about all stakeholders being able to understand the model. This is a very valid point, but in my experience (mainly using IES), lay-people (patronising term, sorry) are more able to understand a 3D model (especially with fly throughs) than a 2D paper representation. For this reason, I think it’s actually easier to present to clients than traditional drawings.
I’m itching to have a play on Second Life but haven’t the access at the minute. As for Ecotect (which Iain highlighted to me), again, I haven’t had the chance to play with yet. At first glance I’m alarmed that architects are veering off into what I would class as an engineer’s task!
The point needs to be made, that the entire design team on a project needs to be using at the very least, compatible models and software. And need I stress the need for architect and engineer to work together from project inception? In an (my?) ideal world, we would move towards truly independent design teams, a kind of Hollywood model, where the architect, engineers and rest of the DT get together for the duration of a single (or several concurrent) projects. Then the architect and engineer could sit side by side (physically or electronically remotely) and design the building together rather than the inefficient tag-team approach commonly used today.
mel starrs Uncategorized Building Physics, CMAA\'s Emerging Technologies Committee, United States
I don’t know where* I found this definition but it came to mind when I found Scott Berkun (who wrote the excellent The Art of Project Management
) had a new book out on innovation, The Myths of Innovation.
Innovation is the collection, assessment and implementation of ideas to transform an organization’s:
- Products: product attributes (what it consists of), product performance (how it works), or product platform (how it’s offered);
- Processes: internal or customer-facing processes, alliances, or technologies;
- Customer Experience: service, delivery channels, brand, or ‘wraparounds’ (the extras it offers customers, such as a connected and helpful community of passionate users); and
- Business Model: how it makes money (or at least covers its costs)
*If you recognise this, let me know and I’ll credit it properly…
mel starrs Uncategorized Management, Scott Berkun
Bovis Lend Lease has pledged to build all projects worth £5m or more to BREEAM ‘Very Good’ standard by 2010.
I’m finding myself underwhelmed by this. I would be more impressed if they committed to carbon reductions (it’s easy enough to get a ‘Very Good’ on a reasonably sited new build project without necessarily addressing carbon aggressively) and had some targets specific to refurbishment. Better than nothing I suppose…
mel starrs Uncategorized BREEAM, GBP
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