Links for April 24th through April 30th
May 1st, 2010
These are my links for April 24th through April 30th:
- Comparing Estidama’s Pearls Rating System to LEED and BREEAM | Carboun: Advocating Sustainability in the Middle East – Excellent write-up on Estidama. I'm drawn to the process and 'philosophical' differences: "The first striking difference between The Pearls Rating System on the one hand, and LEED and BREEAM on the other, is that unlike its predecessors systems, the Pearls Rating System is not a standalone document, but part of the Pearls Design System, which includes a complementary design Guide and supplementary Application Guides for public works, parks and infrastructure."
- French Building Sector should speed up process of BREEAM-HQE alignment « Sustainable Innovation – Interesting article on the delay of alignment of HQE and BREEAM in France. Some interesting points about the spread of BREEAM across Europe including a map showing which countries are taking it up.
- Green Guide for Historic Buildings published – "A comprehensive new guide for anyone wanting to improve the environmental performance of historic and listed buildings has been published today by The Prince's Regeneration Trust, the heritage regeneration charity of HRH The Prince of Wales. The Green Guide for Historic Buildings provides practical step-by-step advice on improving the environmental sustainability of historic and listed buildings. The guide gives expert opinion on sympathetic adaptations and, crucially, how effective they are likely to be in saving money and reducing carbon emissions."
- Real Life LEED: A Night at the Proximity – My Stay at the First LEED Platinum Hotel – Wow!: "While the design and construction practices leading to their LEED Platinum certification were no doubt substantial, what really impressed me about this hotel is its managements' commitment to sustainable operations. Not only do they track the energy use of the facility, they have built a running model that figures in hotel occupancy and uses an on-site weather center to calibrate the performance under ever changing conditions! Having had a few years to learn how the building really works, they've even gotten to the point where they provide rooms for guests based on energy performance… They don't place people in the south-facing rooms until the hotel is filling to capacity so they can close the blinds and reduce the solar heat gain to the maximum extent possible. You don't get to that point by just letting the design and construction team do their thing and simply moving in."
- What is the Commercial EPC Conventions Group? | National Energy Services – "The path to complete (or even partial) consistency is not an easy one, and is borne out by the fact that an output has yet to be delivered, but Issue 1 of the conventions is a fairly weighty set and should prove worth the wait. Even the seemingly easy conventions can turn out to be difficult when you have 6 keen accreditation schemes sitting around a table, and in some cases an almost complete lack of guidance or even intent from guiding organisations (naming no names!) will severely hamper progress being made. Several key fundamental issues, such as the details of what is a party wall and what is a low energy building, remain unresolved. We’re working hard with everyone else to sort out aspects such as these as soon as possible."
- breeam – Really cute video for BREEAM-ES (Spanish BREEAM). Complete fluff but cute.
- Roger K. Lewis – Smart growth incorporates lessons from planning mistakes – Good short primer on smart growth in US suburbia.
- 10 ways that SAP 2009 will impact you | National Energy Services – Whilst we wait for Part L AD's to come out, a useful guide to changes to SAP2009 from NHER: "There are essentially two types of change within SAP 2009. Firstly, those that aim to improve the accuracy of the SAP methodology. Secondly, changes to make SAP more flexible, enabling a variety of new and existing technologies to be combined within a given dwelling. The overall effect will be an increase in the predicted energy consumption of dwellings for heating, partly offset by a drop in hot water consumption."
- Renewable Energy Body Bats Away “Peak Wood” Claims | Wood Fuel Magazine – “‘Peak wood’ a misleading term, as in contrast to fossil fuels, the resource of woodfuel is fundamentally renewable as opposed to finite. Price escalation as a direct result of reserve depletion – as seen in recent years from geological constraints on oil supply – is therefore not possible. Wood is a soft commodity, where prices should trend downwards as efficiencies in supply develop."
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