Elemental

These are my links for September 24th through September 26th:

• Fabric Insulation – ways of further raising performance standards for all types of building fabric: BD 2428 – Planning, building and the environment – Communities and Local Government – This report summarises building thermal performance requirements in Denmark, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands and classifies them according to the approach taken (elemental unit-based approach, target U-value average heat transmission through the building envelope, heat demand calculation or integrated energy use calculation).
  The regulations are compared to each other and contrasted with United Kingdom building codes.
• Minister pledges zero-carbon homes definition consultation ’shortly’ – The Government expects to begin consultation on the final definition of zero-carbon homes shortly, planning minister Caroline Flint told the Labour Party Conference in Manchester.
  The minister confirmed that the issue of how the zero-carbon definition dealt with on and offsite green generation remained the most challenging element of the form of words which would be consulted on.
  The fringe meeting heard that Government-commissioned research into the zero-carbon target had highlighted problems over the availability of some of the key technologies and an estimate that the new standards could add between 17 and 24 per cent to the costs of a new home.
  The conference also learnt that the standard would be significantly harder to achieve in high-density, urban infill schemes compared to more large-scale non infill projects.
• How eco-towns can support living within ecological limits – Cutting-edge principles for the agencies involved in developing proposals for eco-towns have been published by BioRegional and CABE. The report, What makes an eco-town?, defines an eco-town as a place designed to make it easy for residents to reduce their ecological footprint by two thirds and their carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent below 1990 levels.
• Patrick Barkham talks to Tony Wrench about low-impact housing in … – Closure on the Welsh Hobbit house planning controversy: "After a long struggle with the authorities, Wrench got retrospective approval for his home, tucked away in a valley in south-west Wales, via an unusual planning policy experiment in Pembrokeshire. County council and Pembrokeshire Coast National Park planners agreed to allow for low-impact developments on rural land where normal houses would not be considered, as long as they met stringent environmental, economic and social criteria."
• Environment Agency – Green roof toolkit – GLA green roof toolkit.

mel starrs News bioregional, carbon, checklist, competitors, definition, design, ECOTOWNS, european, fabric, GLA, green, hobbit, house, Housing, London, pdf, performance, planning, report, roof, toolkit, u-values, wales, zero

What I’ve been reading about:

• Andrew Todd: ‘the Gehrys and the Libeskinds don’t add anything to a city’ ~ Cafebabel – "Architecture has now become a political act, involving huge amounts of money, so only good governments can support good projects."
• The Chinese Century – Review of a book I have on my bookcase on China and construction. Good article and tempting me to crack on with the massive tome itself.
• HOK Partners with Biomimicry Guild to Advance Green Design – GreenSource Magazine – Fascinating developments in the world of built sustainability: "HOK, the world’s largest architectural/engineering firm, recently announced a formal partnership with the Biomimicry Guild. In an audio press conference, representatives from both organizations strove to impress biomimicry as an emerging and vital element of sustainable design. The Biomimicry Guild was founded ten years ago by biologists Janine Benyus and Danya Baumeister based on their interest in using their special knowledge of biological adaptations to solve design and engineering challenges. They are to date the only group in the world dedicated to this approach."
• Green Prefab Architect Michelle Kaufmann Releases White Paper Calling for “Nutrition Labels” for Houses – Potential EPC competitor for global housing? "Michelle Kaufmann, award-winning green architect and sustainable living expert, today announced the release of the white paper, "Nutrition Labels for Houses." The white paper explores the need for a universal sustainability labeling standard for houses in the same vein as the federally mandated Nutrition Facts Label for foods. It also asserts that a universal labeling system would help grow the green building industry by making it easier for homebuyers to understand the environmental, health, and financial benefits of living in a green home. "
• UAE puts up £7.34bn to avoid property crash – Building – “The cost of capital is increasing, and a slowdown or correction in real estate pricing is inevitable. The margins are still healthy but it is getting harder.”
• Arts Energy – Home – Arts Council England has developed a self-assessment toolkit for arts organisations to help them implement an effective energy management programme. Such a programme can reduce energy usage and carbon emissions, potentially reducing energy costs by up to 20%.
  The toolkit consists of a number of modules that identify energy efficiency opportunities, develop good energy management practices and set up an action plan. In addition the tool will allow registered users to track their energy performance over time using relevant performance indicators.

mel starrs News Architecture, Arts, biomimicry, book, China, competitors, Council, Dubai, Energy, HOK, Housing, labelling, recession, review, toolkit, UK

These are my links for September 11th through September 19th:

• BREEAM set to cover communities – Building – Unlike existing BREEAM tools, the assessment will take into account regional requirements. Cotter said: “For example, does the development meet the criteria for employment stimulation? It’s about making sure development complements regional local planning requirements.”

  It has not been decided whether the assessment will include existing buildings.

• Rogers and Foster shun nuclear design framework – Building – “Ethically, we wouldn’t get involved in projects like this. We have a fairly strict constitution set up by Richard [Rogers] which prohibits work on military schemes and power stations.”
• NHF demands stricter CO2 timetable for housebuilders – Building – Orr said: “Currently, private developers are not being compelled to meet minimum standards on greenhouse gas emissions at all. In fact, they are being allowed to put their profits ahead of the survival of future generations.

  “It's time that ministers legally locked private developers into the same timetable as housing associations. We have long been calling for the government to ensure that from April 2008 all new private homes emit 25% less CO2. And we would like ministers to make certain that all new privately built homes are zero carbon by 2016, at the very latest.

  “Unless the government compels the private sector to meet the same standards and timetable, private companies will simply try to wriggle out of their environmental duties, saying it costs too much.”

• The Question of Global Warming – The New York Review of Books – "Environmentalism has replaced socialism as the leading secular religion. And the ethics of environmentalism are fundamentally sound. Scientists and economists can agree with Buddhist monks and Christian activists that ruthless destruction of natural habitats is evil and careful preservation of birds and butterflies is good. The worldwide community of environmentalists—most of whom are not scientists—holds the moral high ground, and is guiding human societies toward a hopeful future. Environmentalism, as a religion of hope and respect for nature, is here to stay. This is a religion that we can all share, whether or not we believe that global warming is harmful."
• OMNIVORACIOUS: Thomas Friedman and Fareed Zakaria: Author One-to-One – via Ben Casnocha, Friedman takes Zakaria to task on the alleged green revolution: "So you'll know the green revolution is happening when you see some bodies–corporate bodies–along the side of the road: companies that didn't change and therefore died. Right now we don't have that kind of market, that kind of change-or-die situation. Right now companies feel like they can just change their brand, not actually how they do business, and that will be enough to survive."
• Felicity Lawrence: We could slash our CO2 emissions if we ate less meat. What a pity Boris Johnson doesn’t agree | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk – Whilst the article is good, the reason I am flagging this one is the fact that McD's are the Olympics 2012 official caterer. Cognitive dissonance, anyone?
• TALL BUILDINGS OFFER ECONOMIC BENEFITS, SAYS REPORT: British Property Federation – Fascinating study on tall buildings (in response to Boris quashing some of Ken's plans, I strongly suspect) in London: "The exercise was one of changing the distribution of employment, rather than total levels of employment. The economic benefit was equivalent to the annual output for each of those 80,000 workers increasing by £2,500 a year. A second scenario redistributing those 80,000 workers to less accessible parts of Central London produced a decline in output equivalent to £1,600 a year for every one of those 80,000 workers."

mel starrs News 2016, BREEAM, carbon, change, co2, communities, company, corporations, Economics, environmentalism, ethics, food, global, green, Housing, London, nuclear, policy, private, quote, revolution, Sustainable, tall_buildings, warming, zero

What’s more effective? Thinking short term doom (100 months) or making an investment in long term thinking?

my gut feeling goes with the second – any thoughts? Hat tip to Paul Miller for The Long Now connection. That’s not to discredit the 100 months campaign, I just have reservations with their tone of message. Guess I’m an optimist rather than a pessimist.

mel starrs Diversions long term thinking, optimism

No Words Necessary - The Hand

Some great images courtesy of The Independent. The full article here, a flavour:

“We set up the competition to give cartoonists around the world a platform on which to express themselves,” says John Renard, one of the Earthworks organisers. “We hoped that the competition would stimulate cartoonists to use their pens and wit to help combat environmental devastation and give new impetus to our desperate fight to stop global warming,” he says. “After all, humour is often a valuable key in the struggle to win hearts and minds.”

mel starrs Diversions cartoon, Climate Change, humour

These are my links for August 30th through September 1st:

• Coal verses Nuclear (Jonathon Porritt) – I've not made much comment on George Monbiot's comments on nuclear – mainly because I agree with his qualifications. JP explains here why the green movement are in a kerfuffle about it by explaining: "a communicator as astute and clever as George should (and surely does) know the difference between a 'Yes … If' position and a 'No … Unless' position." JP's a "No…Unless" man…
• Rod Sheard leads MBO at HOK Sport – Building – After a long period of consolidation and M&A are we due for increased fragmentation and MBO's? The current economic climate would suggest not, but HOK Sport are going for it…
• Deadlines provide an opportunity – BSEE – Building Services and Environmental Engineer – BESCA's new accreditation scheme is the only one that certifies assessors to inspect both Level 1 (simple, packaged or VRV) and Level 2 (complex, central-cooled air or water) air-conditioning systems.
• Mission Creep | Neil Williams » Blog Archive » How to be an interesting civil service blogger (and not get fired) – via Tom Watson, a guide to blogging if you're a civil servant. Private sector bloggers can learn from this too – a good summary of things as they stand.
• CIBSE RESET tool (Excel spreadsheet download) – Further to TM38, this tool is intended to provide guidance to those responsible for the design, installation, commissioning, operation and maintenance of building services. It is not intended to be exhaustive or definitive and it will be necessary for users of the guidance given and results produced to exercise their own professional judgement when deciding whether to abide by or depart from it.

mel starrs News Blogging, business, calculators, certification, CIBSE, debate, EPBD, George_Monbiot, green, guide, m&a, MBO, nuclear, part_L, renewables, spreadsheet, TM38, UK

In the pub the other evening, a colleague asked me to explain what I felt the difference was between complicated and complex problems. My thinking on the issue is heavily influenced by Dave Pollard and I credit him with the following explanation:

A complex problem or situation is substantially different from a merely complicated one. Here’s how you know a problem is complex:

1. There are too many interrelated variables to manageably map and show causal relationships between. In other words it is far from perfectly ‘knowable’.
2. It’s intractable — it has defied previous attempts to resolve it satisfactorily.
3. It entails many human factors and hence is subject more to human nature than definable rules.
4. Clarity about the problem co-emerges with ideas for its possible resolution.

The context of our conversation, somewhat obviously, was sustainability and the built environment. The same can be said for the interactions between business and sustainability. An article from HBP’s Leading Green asks if business is becoming too focused on carbon footprints (indeed the same question can be asked of the built environment):

…a singular focus on one ecological system, the atmosphere, may cause perverse outcomes or neglected crises in the hydrosphere or lithosphere. We see this clearly in the rush to produce lower carbon biofuels and the unintended consequences this has had on land use, biodiversity, water and other issues. To put it bluntly, your company does not live by carbon alone, but on water, oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus, sulfur and hydrogen cycles.

The article goes on to promote forthcoming tools which will help business cope with these issues.

Sustainability is not the problem – it’s the state we are trying to reach. Sustainable development is how we will get there. Endogenous activity with the biosphere in more than complicated (refer to Dave’s list above). The key to successful sustainable development is in acknowledging the complexity of the situation and not getting distracted by, what in essence is, the low hanging fruit of carbon. Rather than compartmentalise a small aspect of the problem, we need to look at the bigger picture.

mel starrs Opinion complex complicated semantics sustainability carbon