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My del.icio.us bookmarks for September 24th through September 26th

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.

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