Elemental

These are my links for October 24th through October 29th:

• Campaign calls for strengthened renewables policy – PlanningResource – "Ministers pledged in July to update the guidance in PPS1 and PPS22 to "ensure that they set a clear and challenging framework for delivering energy infrastructure consistent with national ambitions."
  TCPA energy policy manager Kate Henderson said: "The planning system can play a key part in tackling climate change by ensuring we get the right amount of renewable energy, by encouraging carbon zero development and by shaping development which reduces the need to travel by car.
  "But despite some excellent rhetoric, much of the planning system is still locked in the age of stupid. It allows carbon intensive development and often refuses real solutions to climate change such as renewable energy projects."
  Ministers plan to publish a draft new PPS on climate change and renewable energy by the end of the year, with the aim of adopting new guidance before the end of the current parliament."
• Energy standards for homes to fall short of Passivhaus – Building – The death knell for CSH?: "The Hub has proposed a radical overhaul, with builders asked to meet an annual energy output per square metre depending on building type, rather than satisfy the points-based system operated by the code."
• UK must replace 12 million non-condensing boilers by 2022 says CCC – CCC recommends that: "Non-residential buildings achieve a minimum Energy Performance Certificate rating of F or higher by 2020."
• SuperFreakonomics Ignores the Business Case for Sustainability – Andrew Winston – HarvardBusiness.org – I have largely missed the Superfreakonomics geo-engineering debate – this is a good starting point. Hoping to catch Levitt and Dubner at LSE later this month – some pointed questions will be ready…
• Statistics watchdog hits out at government emissions claim – PlanningResource – "The government has been exaggerating the UK's success in cutting carbon emissions, according to the UK Statistics Authority.A Department of Energy and Climate Change claim that carbon emissions were 12.8 per cent lower in 2007 than in 1990 is "unsatisfactory" and falls short of the government's code of practice for official statistics, said the watchdog's chairman Sir Michael Scholar.In a letter to the Commons environmental audit committee chairman Tim Yeo, he said nearly a third of that fall is made up of carbon credits in the EU trading scheme and do not represent real
  cuts. The fall is 8.5 per cent without the credits."
• RIBA to bin ‘outdated’ fee scale graphs | News | Architects Journal – So everyone will be laminating their old copy then? : "The RIBA is to drop its fee scale graphs in the latest edition of A Clients Guide to Engaging an Architect.
  The loss of the graphs, which featured percentage fees based on independent cost survey data, marks the demise of the institutes once compulsory fee scales abolished as mandatory in 1982 and as recommended scales in 1992.
  The RIBA maintained the revised guide would still contain concise written advice about how practices calculate fees and structure payment options."
• PassivHaus UK – My current obsession with U-values unearthed this gem: "Please note that whilst PHPP includes a worksheet for calculating the U-values of components it is not sufficiently accurate for demonstrating compliance against UK building regulations as it does not adhere to BRE document Conventions for U-value calculations (2006 Edition). Whilst the U-value calculator incorporated within PHPP is used as a basis for certification purposes designers are recommended to use suitable U-value calculator software packages for demonstrating UK building regulations compliance and undertaking SAP calculations, suitable software includes BRE's own U-value calculator, or other software packages such as BuildDesks free U-value calculator."
• Climate Change (Political Response): 21 Oct 2009: House of Commons debates (TheyWorkForYou.com) – Andrew Stunell (Lib Dem) reminds us all of a forgotten Bill during last week's 1010 debate: "In 2004, I was fortunate to be top of the ballot and able to introduce the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Bill in this House. I wish to say to the House and to the Minister that there have been missed opportunities as a consequence of the Government not choosing to implement what was in that Bill, which allowed them to amend the building regulations to take account of the sustainability and efficiency of buildings."
  Worth reading the entire debate (despite the outcome)

admin News BRE, carbon, CCC, CSH, Economics, emissions, EPC, fee, government, hub, lib_dem, passivhaus, PPS, SAP, scale, TCPA, u-values, zero

Spotted this article in BD last week which piqued my interest. I’ve been thinking long and hard what a change of government next May might mean to the industry.

The Conservative Party has trained its sights on Cabe as part of an expected crackdown on expensive government quangos if the party wins the next election.

In the midst of the worst recession for decades, shadow ministers Ed Vaizey and Grant Shapps this week raised questions over the future of the taxpayer-funded watchdog following leader David Cameron’s recent pledge to replace the current “spendaholic” government with a new government of thrift.

So how much spending are we talking about here? Off to the ERC Quango database and a few minutes later I had knocked up a graphic with the 2006 government funding inserted. Note that the LDA figures are taken from their annual report for 2006/7 and relate only to the DTI funding (they have contributions from others). Also, the HCA was still EP and HC back in 2006.

click image to enlarge

Whilst CABE spends considerably more than say SDC, it pales in comparison to English Heritage and the RDA’s. And by far the biggest slice of the pie is HCA. (I’m assuming the spending in education is actual delivery of education rather than building of schools).

I’m not sure whether CABE are safe or not, or if they should be. But it’s always worth putting a bit of context to a story when there’s no data given. Come on BD, you could have done that?

And why should the industry care? Take a look at the bodies above and tell me you haven’t been involved in at least one project where funding came from one of those pots over the past 10 years? So, crystal ball time. Without getting into party politics, anyone want to predict what the effects of a change at the top will be (especially for those of us (mid thirties and younger) who have never really worked under any other flavour of government)? Comments, as always, are open…

admin News, Regulation CABE, government, quango, SDC, spending, UK

What I’ve been reading about:

• Personal carbon trading evaluation published – study indicates personal carbon trading is essentially ahead of its time and expected costs for implementation are high. Govt. may introduce personal carbon trading if the value of carbon savings and cost implications change.

mel starrs News carbon, government, trading, UK

These are my links for April 1st through April 5th:

• How To Find Lost Objects – via LifeHacker – a 122 page pdf on a similar vein to www.flylady.net
• IES <VE SBEM> EPC SOFTWARE MEETS 6TH APRIL DEADLINE – IES on the ball again when it comes to SBEM (even though their DSM software IMO is the tool you ought to use)
• Cover It Live – via Simon Dickson, a killer live blogging app. Might try this for Think 08…
• Cutting carbon will grow US economy – Researchers at Yale University reviewed 25 leading economic models and showed that GDP would increase by around 3 %/y if dramatic carbon cutting measures were adopted across the country.
• 1 April 2008: New release of iSBEM_v3.1.a for EPCs – The overheating calculation still isn't working – expect yet another version in the future…
• Hong Kong BEAM – Green Building Label – Interesting statistics – "A US study, for example, found that certified green buildings cost 1.8% more to design and construct, but yield 20% cost savings over the life of the building."
• PM helps householders go green – Article not that exciting in itself, but found it via Twitter. I love Twitter…"Green Neighbourhoods initiative will give a "green makeover" to up to 100 neighbourhoods in England with an aim to reduce their carbon footprints by more than 60 per cent."
• China Launches Green Building Council: An Interview with Kevin Hydes, World GBC Chair – China, BREEAM and LEED. International standards currently only used in office buildings for multinationals or upscale apartments. China's version called what? (link goes to mandarin site)

mel starrs News BEAM, Blogging, BREEAM, business_case, calculator, carbon, certification, China, commitments, dsm, ebook, Economics, free, government, green, Green Building Council, gtd, ies, Kevin Hydes, LEED, lifehacks, Productivity, SBEM, Simon Dickson, Software, United Kingdom, United States, web2.0, www.flylady.net, Yale University

I first was alerted to www.theyworkforyou.com via Stuart Bruce, who originally was the one who pointed me in the direction of Simon Dickson, who I believe is instrumental in the design of the site. I was happy today to find a question on there relevant to me (via my bloglines keyword search for BREEAM). The idea of the site is explained as:

TheyWorkForYou.com is a non-partisan website run by a charity which aims to make it easy for people to keep tabs on their elected and unelected representatives in Parliament, and other assemblies.

The question I found was “ask the Secretary of State for Education and Skills what incentives there are for schools to incorporate micro generation technology and solar thermal panels when spending the additional capital resources announced in the pre-Budget report.” Readers of the site are even given the opportunity to vote if the reply answers the question or not (I haven’t voted). Jim Knight (Minister of State (Schools and 14-19 Learners), Department for Education and Skills) has responded in the written answers. According to TWFY:

“The parliamentary question is a great way for MPs and Peers to discover information which the government may not wish to reveal. Ministers reply via written answers, a list of which gets published daily.”

Poking about www.theyworkforyou.com a bit more reveals RSS feeds for every MP and their appearances. So in addition to reading David Miliband’s own blog I can now follow his parliamentary appearances here. I can also ‘stalk’ Yvette Cooper and Ruth Kelly.
If anyone wants to learn more about social media in the UK, I’d highly recommend Stuart and Simon’s blogs as good starting points, be it from slightly different perspectives.

mel starrs News bloglines keyword search, David Miliband, Department for Education and Skills, government, Jim Knight, micro generation technology, rss, Ruth Kelly, Simon Dickson, social media, Stuart Bruce, United Kingdom, www.theyworkforyou.com, Yvette Cooper