Opinion
A rough guide to BREEAM 2008
I’ve been promising forever to write some kind of field guide to BREEAM. With the launch of BREEAM 2008 to the general public on 24th June, a perfect opportunity has arisen and I don’t need to be as worried about accidentally releasing information into the public realm, as BRE have done it themselves. Major [...]
Global air conditioning
It’s not like me to talk about air conditioning - I spend most of my time trying to design it out. However, I found myself pondering the international market and what else is a blog for, than a place to throw out your half-baked thoughts to the world. Feel free to jump in and [...]
Moving targets
I’m rediscovering Dave Snowden after bouncing him off my RSS feeds in an overzealous fit of ‘relevancy’ during my MBA. Which seems odd now, as cognitive behaviour was one of my favourite topics in the modules where it was relevant. This post is worth reading for this sentence alone:
Humans display high ingenuity when you create [...]
Zero carbon housing - what does it mean?
I’ve been following the recent developments on zero carbon housing closely. The current discussions are revolving around the UKGBC’s document defining zero carbon released a couple of weeks ago. I read the document and had a couple of observations to make which I didn’t blog immediately. Instead I sat back [...]
When is regulation merely guidance?
Spotted this over at m&e sustainability:
“We are not going to get 100 per cent of buildings complying with the Building Regulations 100 per cent of the time,” said Ted King, principle mechanical and electrical engineer at the CLG. “We don’t have a Police State in this country, nor do we want one. It is far [...]
Actions reflect (unconscious) convictions
Among my construction and sustainability feeds are a growing number of food and economics links. Seems everything is connected. Whilst it’s not something I would blog about full time (a little too far off topic), I am constantly educating myself on the issues (readers have probably picked up themes from my del.icio.us links). [...]
Who needs hindsight?
I was just perusing through the archives of BSJ looking for something else entirely, when I came across this debate from 2000 on the then proposed Part L. I found this paragraph to be particularly enlightening:
The clauses covering overheating criteria for naturally ventilated buildings puzzled more than one delegate. Oscar Faber’s Ant Wilson queried [...]
Green Hippocratic Oath?
The guys over at HBR green have an interesting article on how business is evolving:
The once unassailable notion that corporations exist solely to maximize their shareholders’ returns is crumbling. Without a doubt, the dramatic scale and scope of the challenges presented by climate change will require the next generation of business leaders to adopt a [...]
Is activism dead?
I opened up my Google Reader this morning to find this post by Michael over at Phil’s blog. Michael’s take on Greenpeace and the broader issue of activism is summarised by his remembering of AS politics:
it was the oppositional nature of our bicameral system that led to the fractious nature of politics in this country. [...]
Responsible Sourcing of Materials
A phrase which strikes terror into the heart of any BREEAM assessor. Since the 2006 update, the responsible sourcing of timber credit got a makeover and included just about anything in the project. The credit guidance is the longest in the manual - from memory I think it is 12 pages but this [...]
