Elemental

As reported by Building4Change:

A new ISO standard aims to bridge the gap between regional and national environmental assessment methods by providing a common framework for them to be carried out.

ISO 21931-1:2010 highlights the key issues to be assessed at every stage of a construction project, from design through to operation and refurbishment or deconstruction. Each of these stages impact on a building’s environmental performance throughout its lifetime and assessment methods are integral in determining its overall sustainability.

There is a clear requirement in the construction sector for such assessments to not only be accurate but consistent. An internationally agreed framework will help ensure that buildings are constructed as sustainably as possible whilst enabling projects to be benchmarked and progress monitored.

I’ve read it, so you don’t have to. It’s only 38 pages long though, and most of those are taken up by definitions, so perhaps I’m not as civic minded as first appears.

I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to reproduce without infringing copyright law (10% rings a bell? can anyone clarify?), so I’ve kept the clippings to a minimum.

The ability to measure and understand the environmental performance of buildings is essential for communicating their potential environmental impacts and their influence on sustainable development.

However:

This part of ISO 21931 does not set benchmarks or levels of performance relative to environmental impacts and aspects.

The document is more of an umbrella (for Europe) which will provide common language to enable standards (such as BREEAM, HQE and DGNB) to be relatable to each other.

We’ve long debated if we’ll end up with one environmental standard to rule them all, or continue to have local, national schemes relevant to location. Sustainability tends to be context specific, so having localised standards makes sense (and the path BREEAM is following), and this framework ought to make things easier. Indeed this is picked up in section 4.3:

The environmental performance of a building is influenced by the characteristics of the climatic, social, economic and cultural context of the nation, region and site in which the building is located.

Subject to the aims and objectives of the assessment, the environmental performance of a building shall be expressed by absolute values. In addition, relative values may be used alongside the absolute values. Relative values refer to given contexts and should reflect regionally relevant benchmarks, as appropriate

This document is not specifically calling for data measurement to be exactly replicated across different schemes – there are moves afoot to define common carbon metrics which will make this much easier, but that is not the purpose of this document.

Lifecycle impacts are explicitly encouraged:

All life-cycle stages shall be considered in the assessment. When some stages are not considered or are excluded from the assessment, the reasons for such omission or exclusion shall be clearly explained in the methodology documentation. The assessment report shall state which life-cycle stages are included and which life-cycle stages are excluded.

Interestingly, in the list of impacts to be considered by an assessment method, notable by their absence are physical location and context of the building, and transport. This does not sit comfortably with me – I have never quite forgiven CSH for removing the transport credits from EcoHomes. I suspect given this guidance document, the same may happen in BREEAM.

The document, if anything, enables any European country to come up with their own assessment method. There is nothing in there which negates the use of either BREEAM nor LEED (although lifecycle calculations may need to be tightened up somewhat). In fact, both schemes as they currently stand cover more ground than that which this document calls for.

Do you need to read this document? Probably not. It gives a good broad overview of the benefits of environmental assessments, so might be useful for that.

And now you don’t need to read it. Aren’t I good to you all?

admin Book Review BREEAM, Europe, LEED, standardisation

These are my links for June 29th through July 1st:

• Gentrification and Its Discontents – Magazine – The Atlantic – "Zukin declares that she “resent[s] everything Starbucks represents,” which really means that her urban ideal is the cool neighborhood at the moment before the first Starbucks moves in, an ever-more-fleeting moment. Indeed, what has changed since Jacobs’s day—and the reason, as these books attest, that gentrification has become so intense an issue—is the speed of the transition of districts from quasi dereliction to artsy to urban shopping mall. This acceleration results from the ways consumption has become the dominant means of self-expression (Zukin is perceptive on this point) and from—relatedly, ultimately—the acceleration of the global economy."
• CIBSE CHP Group Seminar – Great overview of CHP: "To determine the appropriate size of a CHP system, there are several approaches that can be taken. The base load heat demand could be the benchmark for selecting a unit so that all the heat produced is used. Alternatively, the system can be sized based on the electrical base load without regard to the heat demand. In either case, it is possible that there is a more optimal size than will meet just the base load. Therefore, an in-depth analysis of daily or hourly loads is necessary for correct sizing. It is also important that the true base load energy demand is determined before sizing a CHP system. This means that energy efficiency measures should be implemented first to reduce energy demand and thus reduce the size of CHP system required."
• Interview: Michael Pollan | Life and style | The Guardian – I'm a massive fan of Pollan – great interview: "Big Food as it exists today is, patently, not sustainable. Two shocking statistics: before 1950, every calorie of fossil fuel energy expended on food production resulted in 2.3 calories of food; these days it takes 10 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calorie of your edible foodlike substance."
• Urban farms: can you source a complete meal from inside the M25? | Life and style | The Observer – Good to see Rosie is grounded in reality – urban food will never feed London entirely: "Nobody knows exactly how many farms there are in London. In a report, I read that there are 500 but I find it hard to believe. "I find that a bit hard to believe, too," says Rosie Boycott. "I haven't found that many. But they are there. Obviously it's barking to suggest London is ever going to be able to feed itself but there are things we can do to help small producers come to market. And of course a lot of it is about education.""
• Taxing carbon: Worth a go | The Economist – Perhaps not the panacea we hope for, but good to see someone is crunching the numbers: "A carbon tax has many more general advantages as a fiscal tool, too. It would be simpler and more predictable than the current jumble of tax breaks, trading schemes and purchasing obligations. The principle—that polluters pay for the damage they cause—is easily grasped, and it is politically attractive to tax “bads” such as pollution instead of “goods” such as work and entrepreneurship. And, by establishing a reliable price for carbon, it could give businessmen the certainty they need to invest in greener technologies. But the effect of that is likely to show up only after 2020."
• New Statesman – No hands to the pump! – The problem with ASHP: "But there's a problem. According to the Energy Saving Trust, carbon emissions are not actually reduced if air-source heat pumps replace gas or oil boilers, but only existing electric heating and coal-fired systems. Ground-source heat pumps are only slightly better. Yet the proposed guidelines do not specify where heat pumps should be installed to qualify for the subsidy. So the danger is that thousands of heat pumps will be drawing a subsidy of more than £1,000 a year, while delivering no emissions benefit."
• Construction Manager – Features – Great article on SKA: "According to Hall, the scheme could address several gaps in the market. “It suits smaller projects, and it’ll help tenants who aspire to a green fit-out but who might have taken space in a building that doesn’t have BREEAM excellent or very good. And I’d say our project managers have found it easier to get to grips with Ska compared to BREEAM.”<br />
  Ska has been developed to capture data from the smallest interior refresh to major refurbishments, judging their sustainability criteria in isolation from the building they sit in. The system is designed to be user friendly, based on a free online tool that helps to guide early design decisions. The project team can then make headway on cutting carbon without calling in a specialist consultant. “The guidance is exceptionally intuitive, so no one’s sitting around saying ‘where’s our BREEAM assessor when we need him’,” says Skansen director James Pack."
• Five Myths About Sustainability – BusinessWeek – Good common sense: "LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) is a rating system developed by the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) to provide guidelines for, and certification of, sustainable buildings. There are many highly sustainable buildings that are not LEED-certified; it's not a requirement for being green.<br />
  If an organization won't benefit from LEED certification, we don't recommend it. It's costly and time-consuming so there has to be a business value to get the plaque on the wall. There are times when a project is highly sustainable, but pursuing LEED certification is not the right business decision."
• Paul Miller » Whole Earth Discipline – Book duly added to wishlist: "Stewart Brand’s book Whole Earth Discipline is one of the best books I’ve read in the last few years, partly because it’s very well written and researched but mainly because it made me change my mind about some important issues.<br />
  Perhaps the easiest argument for me to accept (although I still learned a great deal) was the section on cities. It’s always made sense to me that cities are more efficient use of resources and are the driving force behind new ideas and problem solving. I’m a pretty big believer that new things happen when you bring people together who have different skills and experiences. You can either design those situations – as things like the Manhattan Project show – or you can just sit and watch as it happens in cities – the more cosmopolitan and connected the better. Of course, as cities grow they develop new problems, but they solve them just as quickly as they produce them."
• Government prepares 2050 low-carbon master plan – 25 Jun 2010 – BusinessGreen.com – "The report is expected to argue that the UK will need to electrify much of its infrastructure if it is to have any chance of meeting the 2050 carbon targets.<br />
  "An 80 per cent target means that realistically we need to electrify large sections of transport and heating," said the government spokesman. "That means that while overall energy demand may fall, demand for electricity could double by 2050. All the big investment challenges we face relate to that change.""
• Sustainability: World’s Most Sustainable Building – Not sure about 'most' sustainable, but it does look striking: "the Wuhan New Energy Center boasts to have a zero carbon footprint. The lily shaped building generates its own energy thanks to the vertical axis windmill and solar chimney. The building also harvests rain water within the building. The roof of the building is basically a solar panel array for generating electricity. The design allows the building to be cooled naturally. Designed by the design consultants Grontmij and Soeters Van Eldonk Architects the building will eventually stand 140 feet tall."
• Target Zero | School Guidance Report Summary – Interesting report – particularly interested on the NPV work: "The maximum on-site derived operational carbon emission reductions of 119% of regulated emissions (against a target of 124% for true zero carbon performance), can only be achieved using a package of energy efficiency measures, a 50kW wind turbine, 1300 m&sup2; photovoltaics, biomass boiler and 216 m&sup2; solar thermal panels. These measures incur an increased capital cost of 11.5%, which have a positive 25-year net present value (NPV).<br />
  To achieve economic true zero carbon performance requires the integration of off-site LZC technologies such as tapping into a district CHP plant"

admin News 2050, ASHP, carbon, CHP, cities, farming, food, gentrification, guardian, heat, Jane_Jacobs, LEED, Lily, London, npv, nuclear, nyc, RHI, Schools, SKA, tax, urbanism, Wuhan, zero_carbon

The eagle eyed amongst you may have spotted a new page on the blog - global building accreditation schemes. It is very much a work in progress and I’ve missed any obvious schemes, please let me know.

As new announcements are made, I add them into the google spreadsheet which sits behind the page. For example, yesterday I added Italy LEED to the list – this is the first European country to commit to LEED – BREEAM up until now had penetrated the market to a much greater extent. The news is different elsewhere in the world – LEED dominates in most other regions.

Many articles debate which scheme will ‘win’ the battle. For my money, it’s too early to call, both systems have different business models which may suit different local conditions and economic realities. Sustainability, in my opinion, is context specific and subjective. This is another problem with simplifying into codes.
Humans by our very nature like to simplify things and make things easier for our brains – we use heuristics (to reduce the effort on our brain). LEED and BREEAM are no more than useful shorthand for today’s most widely accepted definitions of what a sustainable building looks like.

In the future voluntary green accreditation schemes may be overtaken by local building codes (Building Regs in the UK). There is a great little paper from USGBC here (pdf, 8 pgs) which outlines the history of building codes:

The idea of a building code is more than 3,000 years old. Even the earliest civilizations recognized that predictable and consistent minimum standards had to apply to construction materials and practice in order to provide practical and adequate protection of human life, safety and the welfare of the community at large. The Code of Hammurabi, named for the founder of the Babylonian Empire, outlined the responsibilities of builders for the safe construction of buildings and laid out harsh punishment for those who failed to comply.
Around 64 A.D. the purview of the codes was widened to include for the first time, fire safety. Though the wealthy Roman Empire kept close rein on its public buildings, it was the burning of Rome—largely due to poorly made, flammable and otherwise unprotected buildings—that gave the impetus for a new generation of safer buildings and neighborhoods in Nero’s subsequent master plan.
But as with much of the rest of the body of ancient knowledge, these Roman codes did not survive the Dark Ages. It took the great fire of London in 1666 to give rise to another early set of fire safety regulations. This same harsh reality was subsequently faced in cities across the globe: fire in cities and in buildings is a threat to human life and public safety, thus public officials around the world were faced with the clear and present obligation to safeguard against its devastating effects.

Worth reading the whole paper – in my opinion there will always be a space for a voluntary scheme which rewards those who do more than the statutory minimum. Whether this remains LEED or indeed BREEAM is a moot point to me. What I am in favour of is both systems keeping ahead of the curve (again, in my opinion, this is where Code for Sustainable Homes has in effect fallen down). USGBC seem to concur:

For the large number of jurisdictions embarking on sustainability planning, and also for those who are well on their way, a green building code and an above-code green building rating system provide the best-case scenario of push-and-pull market-driving tools. Without stronger, more comprehensive codes, the majority of buildings may remain untouched by the positive benefits that building green provides. But without above-code rating systems, these codes may be seen as the best we can possibly do, rather than the most we can reasonably expect. Any jurisdiction engaged in sustainability planning should be considering the universe of available green building policy options, and pressing hard to further the policy innovations that have become a hallmark of the green building movement.

Do you agree?

admin Accreditation Accreditation, BREEAM, global, LEED

These are my links for June 18th through June 21st:

• HAT Projects blog – Hana adds more to Charles' PQQ rant: "The big firms have clients – and particularly the weak public sector ones, who are bound by procurement guidelines – over the proverbial barrel. Not only is it then incredibly hard to promote less mainstream talent, but the big firms can then churn out standardised product that often doesn't really meet the brief, and their 'competitive' fees get boosted by the myriad services that weren't included in the original contract but that are actually essential, and chargeable by the hour. There is rarely an incentive for the consultancy to meet deadlines or budgets. That's not to say there aren't some good large firms, or good individuals within large firms, but the assumption that the service you get from a large firm is less risky than that you might get from a small one, is illogical."
• Net Benefits of Biomass Power Under Scrutiny – NYTimes.com – "Biomass proponents say it is a simple and proved renewable technology based on natural cycles. They acknowledge that burning wood and other organic matter releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere just as coal does, but point out that trees and plants also absorb the gas. If done carefully, and without overharvesting, they say, the damage to the climate can be offset. But opponents say achieving that sort of balance is almost impossible, and carbon-absorbing forests will ultimately be destroyed to feed a voracious biomass industry fueled inappropriately by clean-energy subsidies. They also argue that, like any incinerating operation, biomass plants generate all sorts of other pollution, including particulate matter. State and federal regulators are now puzzling over these arguments."
• The Original Green By Steve Mouzon: A Must-Read If You Care About Sustainable Design : TreeHugger – "In the current world of green and sustainable design, so much weight is put on technology; the adding of solar power, high tech glass, qualifying for LEED. It is all about ADDING things. The lesson one learns from Mouzon, and from many heritage buildings, walkable communities and dense cities, is how well one can do with less, by taking stuff away, without any diminishment of comfort. Everyone is complaining lately about how much LEED costs and how poorly LEED buildings are performing, but they are complex things that have new and fancy equipment. But Mouzon points out old technologies are easy to maintain and adjust."
• Architect Frank Gehry talks LEED and the future of green building | Need to Know | PBS – More from Gehry on LEED. The role of government versus voluntary is discussed, but to no satisfactory conclusion. I'm sure he's wishing he never said anything to begin with. A throw away comment has caused a storm of attention on something he's obviously not that passionate one way or the other about.
• Unlocking the Potential of Empty Homes: Building Houses on Old Kent Road – "For years we’ve been told not to worry about the thousands of vacant flats and houses that are in regeneration schemes. “They’re all the process of development,” we were told. But they’re not now. The process and the development have both stopped. Somehow we have to find a way to turn these places back into homes."
• Fantastic Journal: A Short Post About Risk – "Vast amounts of time and effort go into answering these questions but it's a fruitless and largely pointless process. The PPQ limits the likelihood of any form of innovation as it is explicitly designed to stop practices getting jobs in areas where they aren't already working. They also disempower clients, removing from them any chance to exercise judgement or knowledge in selecting an architect. They denude any form of expertise and create a vast raft of bureaucracy and management bullsh*t in its place."
• A special report on water: For want of a drink | The Economist – Good high level article on global water supplies: "The problems caused by inexact terminology do not end here. Concepts like efficiency, productivity and saving attract woolly thinking. Chris Perry, an irrigation economist widely considered the high priest of water accounting, points out that “efficient” domestic systems involve virtually no escape of water through evaporation or irrecoverable seepage. “Efficient” irrigation, though, is often used to describe systems that result in 85% of the water disappearing in vapour. Similarly, water is not saved by merely using less of it for a purpose such as washing or irrigation; it is saved only if less is rendered irrecoverable."
• SOLUTIONS – Sustainability of Land Use and Transport in Outer Neighbourhoods – "The options represent generic Urban Patterns combined with appropriate transport policies. Currently outer-city areas (which includes suburbs, urban fringes, out-of-town developments and satellite settlements) have generally received less attention in spatial planning and urban design research. However, these areas are where most people live and where most new development is taking place. A unique feature of SOLUTIONS research is that it aims to understand the extent to which the sustainability of the design of cities at the Strategic Design scale and the Local Design (neighbourhood) scale are interdependent. This is achieved by carrying out the research within the frame work of strategic land use – transport computer models, and the development of equivalent 'Microsimulation' models at the local scale."
• ULI – Land Use and Driving – "Land Use and Driving summarizes the land use and climate change conclusions of three recent studies, Moving Cooler, Growing Cooler (both published by ULI) and Driving and the Built Environment, published by the Transportation Research Board at the National Academy of Sciences. On a national basis, the three studies show reductions in VMT and energy consumption of between 8 and 18 percent when compact development makes up 60 percent or more of all future development between now and 2050."

admin News biomass, cars, compact, development, driving, Gehry, LEED, PQQ, Procurement, regeneration, transport, urban, water

Image via Archinect

There’s been a bit of a storm in the green building press stateside over the past couple of months. Frank Gehry, godlike architect in some eyes, had the tenacity to criticise LEED.

Businessweek reported:

What would you think, Pritzker asked him as they sat in hard-backed chairs on an auditorium stage, if a client said he wanted a LEED-certified building? “Oh, great,” Gehry answered in a high, mock-excited voice, as the audience laughed. Then, back in his regular voice, he dismissed environmental concerns as largely political concerns. “A lot of LEEDs are given for bogus stuff. A lot of the things they do really don’t save energy.”

He also said the expense of building to LEED standards often outweighs the benefits. On smaller projects, he said, “the costs of incorporating those kind of things don’t pay back in your lifetime.”

I would possibly caution against reading the comments after the article – some highly caustic vitriol which had me splurting coffee on my keyboard! Instead, read this comment, from another blog commenting on Gehry:

A well designed building will meet LEED easily; but there are certainly a lot of buildings designed to meet LEED that are anything but well designed.

Exactly! And the same can be said for BREEAM, or any other certification system.

LEED and BREEAM both suffer from the same bias with regards to human behaviour and our decision making ability when faced with complex issues. If we can frame a basket of issues in terms of a single score, rating or mark, we will. So LEED and BREEAM become convenient shorthand for ‘proving’ your building is green. Simplifying complex issues inevitably opens up the potential for criticism. And the criticism has been flowing recently – Freakonomics has taken a pop at LEED. This op-ed in the New York Times takes a balanced view, pointing out where the system has been ‘abused’:

Such market-driven motives wouldn’t matter — if LEED in fact measured energy performance. But it can’t: some certified buildings end up using much more energy than the evaluators predicted, because the buildings are more popular than expected or busy at different times than developers forecast, or because tenants ignore or misuse green features. Bike racks merely encourage cycling to work, and operable windows merely offer the opportunity to use less air-conditioning.

This is a valid criticism of both LEED and BREEAM and something we will continue to see more of – evidence  that the building actually performs as designed. LEED-EBOM seems to be the winner stateside – the situation is not so clear here in the UK with BREEAM In Use a contender in a rather larger field which may get sidelined by DEC’s (I will expand on this in another post sometime).

Back to the Gehry storm. Susan S. Szenasy at Metropolis magazine took great offence at Gehry’s remarks, making comparisons between environmental concerns in buildings today with the issue of disabled access 20 years ago. Fred Bernstein at ArchNewsNow.com (a resource I cannot recommend highly enough for daily global architectural digest – though they are sorely missing a trick by not including an RSS feed) countered with a very persuasive argument regards politics, planning decisions and LEED:

Using LEED as a measure of “sustainability” has allowed society to avoid tough questions – tough political questions – about what it should and shouldn’t build.

This is a danger we must at all costs avoid in the UK – and whilst the new administration has voiced a “a presumption in favour of sustainable development”, it would be a mistake to assume that BREEAM alone ensures a sustainable development.

Gehry responded to the criticism, at Businessweek:

Yes, he did say that efforts to win a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design certification can be a waste of time and money. But he told me on the phone that what he really meant to attack was the posturing around the LEED seal of approval. He’s all for energy-efficient buildings, he said, and has been since before there was an Earth Day, in the late 1960s.

Though he reiterated that he had never designed a building just to gain a LEED tag, he noted, in fact, that his Stata Center at MIT has been awarded a LEED silver from the U.S. Green Building Council.

“I’m not against LEEDs at all,” he said. “I think it’s wonderful. I think we’ve got to do this.” But then Gehry, who acknowledged that he is something of a cranky old man, got back on a soapbox to decry today’s automatic embrace of LEED certification. “It’s become ‘fetishized’ in my profession. It’s like if you wear the American flag on your lapel, you’re an American. That’s what I was trying to say. You get people who are holier than thou. I think architects can do a lot, but some of what gets done is marketing and doesn’t really serve to the extent that the PR says it does.”

Bless him, he called it “LEEDs”, but I think he nailed the sentiment dead on. Green certification is, and never will be, a substitute for good design. And I say this as someone who makes the majority of my living from certifying “green” buildings!

admin Opinion Frank Gehry, LEED

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."

admin News biomass, BREEAM, BREEAM-ES, building, EPC, estidama, HQE, LEED, Management, SAP2009, smart_growth

These are my links for March 19th through March 25th:

• Climate science: Spin, science and climate change | The Economist – "…the ambiguities of science sit uncomfortably with the demands of politics. Politicians, and the voters who elect them, are more comfortable with certainty. So “six months to save the planet” is more likely to garner support than “there is a high probability—though not by any means a certainty—that serious climate change could damage the biosphere, depending on levels of economic growth, population growth and innovation.” Politics, like journalism, tends to simplify and exaggerate. Hence the advertisements that the British government has been running, using nursery rhymes…<br />
  Such an approach may, in the short term, have encouraged some voters to support measures to combat climate change. But implying that Britain’s children face some sort of Saharan future is wrong, and dangerous. This week Britain’s ASA slapped the government for its infantile advertisements. <br />
  Where there is plainly an urgent need for change is the way in which governments use science to make their case."
• Neighbors Oppose Green Label for the Software Mogul Mitch Kapor’s Big House – NYTimes.com – When the house won planning approval earlier this year, many neighbors were surprised — not so much by the size of the house, or by its sleek design, but by the fact that, under Berkeley regulations, the house will qualify as “green.” In Berkeley, building proposals are evaluated on a “green point” scale, earning credit for such eco-conscious features as low-flow shower heads and insulation. A house with more than 60 points is labeled green, regardless of its size.
• News : NDS – Business Minister, Ian Lucas, said “London will be a world-leading centre for energy efficient buildings, specialising in retrofitting activity. The variety of buildings across London means that there will be a wide range of highly exportable skills. This position of global leadership will help create wealth for London and the UK economy by providing market opportunities for businesses and inward investors, and jobs for Londoners. “The opportunity to develop and demonstrate solutions for the refurbishment of homes and commercial buildings will help the construction sector to innovate in order to retain, as well as expand, its current market position.” Initially, the programme will include a range of projects aligning nearly £90million funding already committed by the RDAs involved: the London Development Agency (LDA) will lead the LCEA programme, working in collaboration with the South East of England Development Agency (SEEDA) and the East of England Development Agency (EEDA).
• Sustainability is a RESULT (not a reason) | Simcoe Consulting – 2. Results (like sustainability) can be measured, reasons cannot. I can measure the results of a recycling program, I cannot measure the reasons I had a veggie burger for lunch. Reasons, on the other hand, mainly appeal to your psyche and the the outside influences on you. People will say you the reason you should make your lighting energy-efficient is sustainability. Wrong. The reason you should do it is that it will save you money.
• Emerging Findings | Policies | BIS – Worth reading – easily digestible. "On 17 March the Low Carbon Construction Innovation and Growth Team, chaired by Chief Construction Adviser, Paul Morrell, published its Emerging Findings (PDF, 1.7 Mb)."
• The overpopulation myth « Prospect Magazine – "Let’s look at carbon dioxide emissions: the biggest current concern because of climate change. The world’s richest half billion people—that’s about 7 per cent of the global population—are responsible for half of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. Meanwhile, the poorest 50 per cent of the population are responsible for just 7 per cent of emissions. Virtually all of the extra 2bn or so people expected on this planet in the coming 30 or 40 years will be in this poor half of the world. Stopping that, even if it were possible, would have only a minimal effect on global emissions, or other global threats."
• Challenges for energy and buildings research: objectives, methods and funding mechanisms – Building Research & Information – "This commentary reflects on a series of strategic questions facing the energy and buildings research community and research funding bodies in the UK. These include the problems of research capacity and funding, the need to find a new balance between competition and cooperation between research groups, and a need for a renewed focus on the empirical performance of buildings. The authors argue that conventional distinctions between research, development and the deployment of technologies are inappropriate for the built environment. A wider range of approaches to research is needed to enable researchers to engage more effectively with stakeholders throughout the research, development, and deployment process, to reduce the distinction between research and knowledge transfer, and to reduce the length of learning cycles. "
• Report suggests behavioural changes cancel out green refits – Behavioural economics finally hits UK building research: "The framing of the problem of energy demand and CO2 emissions is crucial to its eventual success. The way in which technical interventions in buildings, such as higher insulation standards, improved boiler efficiencies or integrated renewable energy technologies, can directly affect carbon emissions is in principle relatively well understood. Yet it is an unavoidable fact that, despite many technical improvements to the UK building stock, CO2 levels continue to rise. There are many reasons for this. As well as consumers turning up the heat, some increases in emissions can be ascribed to economic growth, which leads to more or larger dwellings, which tend, over time, to contain more electrical items, and items that are also more energy intensive. There are a number of entangled and interacting economic, technical, social and behavioural factors at play."
• Building4Change : Morrell says industry faces biggest change since Victorian times – "The review of the low carbon construction innovation and growth team (IGT) aims to identify how construction can best deliver the future carbon reduction commitments for 2020 and beyond. It will publish its final report later in the year, including recommendations to government to help inform policy development.<br />
  Issues affecting non-domestic buildings are:<br />
  the specific challenges of addressing the existing stock, and particularly the problem of frequently separate ownership and occupation<br />
  the need to stimulate market demand for products and works (new build and retrofit) designed for carbon reduction<br />
  a linked need for innovative means of financing the transition to low carbon<br />
  adoption of project level decision-making on the basis of appraisals founded on a whole life approach."
• All Party Urban Development Group|Home – The All Party Urban Development Group’s new report "Next Steps: A Regeneration Agenda for the Next Government" has been released. It sets out four important measures which a new government needs to implement if it is to safeguard regeneration over the next 10 years.<br />
  Based on research, the report recommends that:<br />
  1. Public sector investment should be focused on the areas that need it most.<br />
  2. Business rates should be localised and tax increment financing (TIF) should be introduced.<br />
  3. Planning reform should be limited after the first year of the next government and planning performance agreements (PPAs) should be used more.<br />
  4. There should be a focus on increasing the housing supply and adjusting stamp duty to encourage greater investment in the private rented sector.
• Socialreporter | Green Valleys show the way to Mass Localism – NESTA's guide to Mass Localism:<br />
  # Establish and promote a clear, measurable outcome<br />
  # Presume a community capacity to innovate<br />
  # In the early stages, challenge and advice is more valuable than cash<br />
  # Identify existing barriers to participation and then remove them<br />
  # Don’t reward activity, reward outcomes

admin News behaviour, building, climate, consumption, Economist, environment, footprint, funding, future, growth, IGT, labelling, LCEA, LEED, localism, Morrell, overpopulation, planning, politics, population, regeneration, research, science, statistics, Sustainability, UK

These are my links for March 6th through March 11th:

• Resisting Dickensian Gloom | Planetizen – I often read stuff I don't agree with, just to keep myself in check. This article is pretty much the opposite of everything I believe. I don't even know where to start. Suffice to say, statistics can be manipulated to back up *any* theory. I'm still a big fan of cities though…
• No more niches – we need sustainable innovation at scale (Jonathon Porritt) – "I spent a day last week at Ecobuild – ‘the biggest event in the world for sustainable design, construction and the built environment’. That absolutely wasn’t a claim that could have been made at the first Ecobuild, five years ago, which attracted no more than 1000 visitors. This year, there were more than 50,000 people there. Earls Court was flush with exhibitors, from some of the biggest companies in the UK to distinctly ‘alternative’ start-ups taking a massive gamble on enough people falling for their particular ‘breakthrough innovation’. There were countless meetings and debates going on the whole time, and the kind of buzz that one doesn’t always associate with events of this kind.<br />
  For the politicians who’d dropped in, and wandered around looking a bit bemused, it all said one thing: no more niches. This was about scale. New orders. Expanding markets. Innovation (in the construction industry!). And even, dare one say it, new jobs."
• Making the connection with sustainable development – The Regeneration Blog – Spot on Jackie – read the whole thing: "We got onto discussing whether "sustainability is the new regeneration" in terms of being the new emerging exciting industry to be part of, for the Noughties and the Tens, in the same way as regeneration was the party-to-be-at for the Eighties and the Nineties. And our verdict was: well, yes!<br />
  The parallels are all there. Environmental jobs are created on the fringe and (at least in the general perception) are still not mainstream. Despite a pretty coherent case, environmentalists still seem to be outsiders, banging on the door of the establishment. Those who choose the environment industry tend to be as messianic and passionate, as pointy-headed, as we were when we "invented" urban regeneration, in London Docklands (among other places) all those years ago.<br />
  Environmental projects tend to need the same skills that we deploy in urban regeneration…"
• Official figures show construction output falling again, but devils lurk in the detail | Brickonomics – More doom from Brian Green: "If you do a crude breakdown of the work sponsored by the public sector, doing your best to include PFI, and the work that is properly private sector, then you find that the public sector underpins close to half the work currently under construction. That compares with less than a third before the credit crunch (see graph 2).<br />
  For me that graph in one picture illustrates the increased level of risk in the construction market given the likely pattern of future public spending."
• Fewer redundancy in construction, but the future remains bleak on jobs | Brickonomics – Well reasoned doom (as ever) from Brian Green: "underemployment is, to some extent, becoming the new unemployment.<br />
  Broadly, the proportional cost of overhead per person increases with the reduction in hours. This makes each person, theoretically, less productive financially from the employers’ perspective.<br />
  Firms may be prepared to carry this cost for a limited period, but if they see no sign of an upturn the likelihood is of a further wave of job cuts. With people working fewer hours and proportionately carrying larger overheads, this (proportionately) increases the numbers of jobs likely to go."
• Feed-in tariff ‘killing off’ burgeoning UK small turbine industry | Environment | guardian.co.uk – Not that I'm necessarily standing up for wind, but the capital cost in this example is half that of the solar: "This will allow a 1.5KW turbine, producing an average of 800KWh a year in windy conditions – less than a fifth of the average UK household's electricity needs. By comparison, UK panel installer Solarcentury has estimated that the typical 18 metre square domestic solar panel installation would on average generate just over 2,000KWh – nearly half the average household's electricity consumption."
• 2009: EPCs in numbers | National Energy Services – Data, data, data! At last some figures which might indicate how many Part L non-dom properties built per year.<br />
  ND EPC (non-dwellings) 111,312<br />
  The post focuses on domestic market, but this is the first time I've seen *any* data on numbers of non-dom EPC's.
• The Archdruid Report: Energy Follows Its Bliss – Via Chris Tweed, a druid(?!?) explains exergy. Very long post – worth reading the whole thing: "In a very small way, as you sit there considering your cold coffee, you’re facing an energy crisis; the energy resources you have on hand (the remaining heat in the coffee) will not do the work you want them to do (warming your insides). Notice, though, that you’re not suffering from an energy shortage – there’s exactly the same amount of energy in the dining room as there was when the coffee was fresh from the coffeepot. No, what you have is a shortage of the difference between energy concentrations that will allow the energy to do useful work. (The technical term for this is exergy). How do you solve your energy crisis? One way or another, you have to increase the energy concentration in your energy source relative to the room temperature environment."
• SuDoBE — Sustainable Design of the Built Environment – Good to see Chris blogging again: "In the context of heated buildings, the ability of a source of energy to “do work” can be interpreted as delivering warmth to occupants. But as the post on exergy suggests, the concentration of heat is important and concentrated sources of warmth indoors are only available from fossil fuels. The erroneous assumption often made about warmth is that it doesn’t matter how it is delivered as long as it is capable of creating a comfortable environment. However, we know thermal comfort depends on the recent experience. If I return home on a cold day, what I want is not a uniform level of heating, which is increasingly the norm in new, highly insulated dwellings with small heating systems, but a high temperature heat source that will help me recover from the outside conditions quickly. There is an aesthetic pleasure to this which should not be underestimated."
• Creating excellent primary schools: A guide for clients | Publications | CABE – Helping primary school clients, working in either the local authority or the school itself, to make the most of new capital investment in their buildings.<br />
  There is a clear link between well-designed primary schools and pupil performance and behaviour. Successful school design is the result of hard work and collaboration between designers, contractors and visionary, committed clients.<br />
  Creating excellent primary schools takes readers step by step through the process, offering practical tools and a dozen inspiring case studies to show just what can be achieved.
• Rethinking biomass boilers | News | Architects Journal – "The number of stories reaching the AJ about the shortcomings of biomass boilers is growing daily. Sources say a raft of schools are giving up on their maintenance-heavy wood-chip or pellet-fuelled boilers and are instead relying on back-up gas-fired boilers.<br />
  This does not seem to be deterring design teams working on the new wave of Building Schools for the Future schemes, 86 per cent of which are going down the biomass route. Garry Palmer, director of advanced design at AECOM, which has been carrying out detailed research into biomass boilers, understands why this is. ‘Biomass is almost certainly the cheapest in terms of capital cost, and is the easiest way to get the additional Department for Children, Schools and Families [DCSF] funding available for low-carbon schools.<br />
  ‘However, when you look at lifecycle costs, other routes are more cost-effective… but the DCSF carbon calculator does kind of push you down the biomass route,’ adds Palmer."
• Making better use of Energy Performance Certificates and data: Consultation – Planning, building and the environment – Communities and Local Government – Hurrah – another consultation: "Energy Performance Certificates (EPC) and Display Energy Certificates (DEC) have an important role to play in supporting our carbon reduction aims by providing vital information about the energy efficiency of buildings in England and Wales and advice about measures to improve their energy performance. To enhance their contribution, we are consulting on a number of measures to help improve the effectiveness of EPCs and to make better use of energy performance data."
• Frank Chimero has a blog. (How-To) – Good philosophy: "Why do we look for recipes? Because we’re risk averse. If we fail, it’s because someone else gave us the wrong recipe. We get to skip on the blame, but can claim the success.<br />
  But, there’s money in recipes. If there’s a recipe, that means there’s a secret. And you can sell a silver bullet. The thing is, most people that are giving you a recipe are pandering to your fear. “What if things go wrong?”"
• Facing up the biomass emissions – BSEE – Building Services and Environmental Engineer – "…many biomass installations already use a cyclone or multi-cyclone to remove particles from flue gases. However, cyclones are totally dependent on the mass of the particles for removal, so while they will remove around 50% of the coarser particles they do not remove particles below PM10. This is why the new Directive and its emphasis on PM2.5 has such significance for biomass installations…<br />
  Until recently there has not been a financially viable alternative but Hoval has now optimised a ceramic filter for use in biomass installations – without making the overall cost of a biomass installation prohibitive.<br />
  Capable of removing up to 96% of PM2.5 and PM10 particles, ceramic filters can be used with any type of biomass boiler and can retrofitted to existing installations, so they have the potential to address many concerns (real of perceived) about particulate emissions from biomass."
• Green Building Programs: The Fundamental Flaw! – Michael Anschel – Excellent point, well made (read the whole post): "If we are asking people to think about how everything is connected, how everything goes somewhere, how their actions impact other people, and about their relationship with nature, then why the hell are we telling them to check their brain at the door and pick up a code book? It is almost as moronic as suggesting the LEED AP test (an exercise in minutia), or the NAHB Certified Green Professional test (a joke) have the ability to turn someone into a green expert!<br />
  Green building requires you to think. In green building, there is no easy path or one-size-fits-all solution. The sooner everyone understands this, the sooner we can get back to the business of green building."
• FT.com / UK / Economy & Trade – BAE chief throws spanner in gas fitters’ work – "Gas fitters, photocopier repairmen and other technicians should stop calling themselves engineers, according to the chairman of BAE Systems, the UK’s biggest manufacturing company.<br />
  “Britain suffers from a language problem in that the word ‘engineer’ is applied to a lot of different people who do a range of jobs,” Dick Olver told the Financial Times. “Professional engineers need to take ownership of the brand and keep it for themselves.”"
• Environment Agency – Opportunity and environmental sensitivity mapping for hydropower in England and Wales – "The map is based on a report commissioned by the Environment Agency to assess hydropower potential of our rivers and the impact of developing them on the environment.<br />
  In total over 25,000 sites were identified. These sites represent existing structures within rivers such as weirs and lochs. As well as hydropower opportunities they are barriers to fish movement and migration.<br />
  If a hydropower scheme were built on every one of these barriers they could generate one per cent of the UK’s electricity needs. In reality, only some of these sites could be exploited due to environmental sensitivities, particularly the impact on migratory fish populations such as salmon and eels, as well as practical constraints such as access to the electricity network.<br />
  However, we identified around 4,000 sites where a sensitively designed scheme incorporating a fish-pass could actually improve the local environment as well as generate electricity."
• Office for Renewable Energy Deployment (ORED) – Department of Energy and Climate Change – Note – they have three objectives – carbon reduction is only one: "Office for Renewable Energy Deployment (ORED)<br />
  ORED's mission is “To accelerate the deployment of renewable energy in order to reduce carbon emissions, increase energy security and create business opportunities in the UK”"
• Tories set out plan for local design standards – Building Design – "A Conservative government would introduce a decentralised planning system where local authorities each draw up individual architectural and design standards, the party has confirmed.<br />
  Proposals to fast track schemes that do not attract objection from local people are also included in the party’s long-awaited planning green paper, Open Source, published on Monday.<br />
  “Legislation already requires councils to promote good design, yet many are struggling” Ruth Reed<br />
  The paper dismisses the current system as “almost wholly negative and adversarial” and instead envisages a broad brushstroke national framework of planning policy, combined with more distinctive regional policies.<br />
  But RIBA president Ruth Reed — who is supportive of the paper’s emphasis on design — said “struggling” councils must be given more resources if they are to draw up and maintain local architectural standards."
• IES » » 111 ways to save energy – Interesting statistic: "Buildings in New York City account for nearly 80 PERCENT of its greenhouse gas emissions. More than buses, cars and taxis. And in a city with more than 10,000 cabs alone, the fact that buildings are the largest contributor of greenhouse gases is astounding."
• Ian McEwan: Failure at Copenhagen climate talks prompted novel rewrite | Environment | guardian.co.uk – "He said was happy to class himself as "warmer" — a term increasingly used by climate sceptics to describe those who agree with the scientific consensus that human activity drives warming. "Though I am quite tempted sometimes to be a calamatist. There is something intellectually delicious about all that super-pessimism."<br />
  McEwan added that his research on climate had forced him to reconsider opposition to nuclear power. "We just don't have anything else that can run our cities on a windless night in February." Better nuclear energy than coal, he said. "It is rare that virtue and necessity collide. Sooner or later we're going to have to find a new energy source for mankind.""
• News – dcarbon8 carbon & sustainability consultancy – Well done, and good luck to Guy: "Deloitte, the business advisory firm, has acquired dcarbon8, a leading carbon and sustainability consultancy, as it expands and evolves its environmental and sustainability consulting practice.<br />
  The deal sees Guy Battle, a founder of dcarbon8, become a Deloitte partner and its employees join Deloitte."
• Real Life LEED: FREE Unlocked LEED 2009 Checklists That Don’t Suck! – Does Real Life LEED have a day job as well (I assume so). In awe of how helpful this website is – wish I had time to do similar stuff for BREEAM): "Below you'll find links to Excel checklists for each of the five v2009 (aka v3) rating systems (…if you think I'm going to try to revamp the LEED-Homes checklist you're insane). Each prints to a single page, has an area for notes, and is COMPLETELY UNLOCKED, so if you don't like something you can edit it on your own."
• My biggest mistakes « Scott Berkun – Great advice from Scott – especially if you're in a large multi-dis consultancy: "Not staying with the same boss/group. When I was there (‘94 to ‘03), after a long stint on the IE team, I jumped around Microsoft every couple of years, putting my curiosity and passions ahead of climbing ladders. I wanted a diversity of experiences – I had four different job titles in nine years at Microsoft – but this made it harder to get promoted and, in some cases, to earn respect in the MSFT culture. The advice I give people all the time is pick your manager first. A great manager will negate most other work problems, whereas an awful manager will negate most other work pleasures. Good managers get promoted and often their best people rise with them."
• Why scientists must be the new climate sceptics – opinion – 04 March 2010 – New Scientist – At the risk of opening up a massive can of worms again, NS points out why bloggers and tweeters shouldn't have risen to Amanda's bait (key phrase being unnecessary and ultimately harmful). Good article worth registering onto the site to read: "Last November, architecture journalist Amanda Baillieu wrote a column in Building Design that questioned whether the building industry should support cuts in carbon dioxide emissions. It was tame stuff, yet it prompted a torrent of criticism, some of it offensive. That was unnecessary, and ultimately harmful to the cause Baillieu's critics were fighting for. Now Baillieu is presenting herself as a brave soul, fearlessly standing up to climate science orthodoxy – despite having presented no evidence to challenge global warming."

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I’m almost finished writing my final installment on BREEAM vs LEED, but I’ve run out of time to publish it this week.  In the meantime, you may be interested to know that CIBSE have a conference coming up on this very subject on 10th Feb 2010 in Balham. A snip at £225 for members.

Hear from Chris Twinn (Arup), Alfonso Ponce-Alvarez, (Centre Scientifique et Technique du Bâtiment), Ivan Rodriguez (URS Corp), Esfandiar Burman (ARCADIS), Sean Lockie (Faithful+Gould), Steven Brindle (Waterman Energy & Environment Design), Vincent Murray (IES) and Angus McIntosh (Kings Sturge).

BREEAM and LEED are the two most widely recognised environmental assessment methodologies used in the construction industry today.   Whilst the thrust of the two are similar – i.e. conserving energy and reducing carbon emissions, generally it is not straightforward to compare the two. What might be applicable in one assessment method might not be relevant in another.

How can a project team determine under which methodology their project can achieve the best rating? This conference aims to give you the necessary background and help you make an informed decision about your project.

admin Accreditation, Events Add new tag, BREEAM, LEED

This follow up post is for those who are familiar with BREEAM and have some knowledge of the credit numberings and weightings for both schemes. If you need to refer to the manuals the BREEAM manual can be found here and the LEED manual can be found here.

If you are just looking for an overview, try the first post in this series here.

I start with a brief overview of LEED 2009 scoring and prerequisites.

Then I look at the main differences and significant similarities in LEED 2009 from BREEAM 2008.

I finish with the weightings which are now within LEED – a significant change between v2 and 2009 which brings it much more in line with BREEAM.

LEED 2009

LEED 2009 replaced LEED 2.0 from 27 April 2009. All discussion which follows refers to LEED-NC (new construction). There are small differences for the other schemes.

Unlike BREEAM, LEED is a points rather than percentage system. There are 100 base points, 6 possible Innovation in Design and 4 Regional Priority points.

Prerequisites

LEED introduced prerequisites before BREEAM’s mandatory credits. Prerequisites are mandatory for all ratings.

Sustainable Sites

• SSP1 – Construction Activity Pollution Prevention

Water Efficiency

• WE1 – Water Use Reduction

Energy and Atmosphere

• EAP1 – Fundamental Commissioning of Building Energy Systems
• EAP2 – Minimum Energy Performance
• EAP3 – Fundamental Refrigerant Management

Materials and Resources

• MRP1 – Storage and Collection of Recyclables

Indoor Environmental Quality

• EQP1 – Minimum Indoor Air Quality Performance
• EQP2 – Environmental Tobacco Smoke (ETS) Control

Sustainable Sites

SS1 forbids development on farmland, wetlands and within 50 feet of a water body. BREEAM has no equivalent (but these may be covered elsewhere within UK legislation).

SS2 requires development density calculations which BREEAM does not. There are similarities in the types of services (bank, shops, post office, etc) which the development is rewarded for being near.

SS3 (brownfield development) is considerably easier to achieve than LE2 (contaminated land).

The transport credits in LEED are considerably less onerous than the BREEAM equivalents. For example, a 300,00ft² office building would require 95 cycle spaces under BREEAM, but only 36 under LEED. LEED rewards specific parking for LEV and FEV or for an LEV sharing scheme. There is no current equivalent under BREEAM, but there is the opportunity to propose this as an innovation credit.

SS5.2 promotes a high proportion of open space to encourage biodiversity. There is no BREEAM equivalent.

SS7.1 and 7.2 refer to heat island effect which BREEAM does not cover, although green roofs are rewarded (for different reasons) under LE 4, LE 5, LE 6 and Pol 5.

Water Efficiency

WEP1 looks at water use reduction against a baseline, rather than setting an absolute target like BREEAM.

WE1 looks at irrigation which is included as Wat 6 in some BREEAM schemes, but not currently in BREEAM Offices 2008.

WE2 relates to BREEAM credit Wat 5, recycling, which is again not included in BREEAM Offices 2008.

In BREEAM there are 3 credits which reward specific design solutions or technologies, namely water meters, sanitary supply shut-off and major leak detection. LEED tends not to dictate design solutions, focussing instead on the intention (i.e. water use reduction).

Energy & Atmosphere

EAP2 requires the building to be designed to ASHRAE 90.1. This is more onerous than designing to CIBSE standards and UK Building Regulations, and there is no BREEAM equivalent. However, by designing to this standard, there is no need to specifically require technologies or design solutions, in the same way that BREEAM does. It gives designers more discretion.

EAP3 relates to refrigeration and is covered in the EU by legislation.

EA1 is roughly equivalent to Ene 1. However there are 2 key differences – it is stated in terms of improvement over a baseline in energy, rather than a target carbon amount, and is also stated in terms of COST of energy. This is also the case for EA2 which looks at renewable and is roughly equivalent to Ene 5.

There is a total of 11.85% available for BREEAM Offices 2008 Ene 1 for a zero carbon building (which relates to Building Regulation Part L calculations). The maximum number of points available under LEED is 19 for a 48% improvement on energy performance calculated from Appendix G baseline from ASHRAE 90.1-2007. Points are very roughly equivalent to 0.9%, so a maximum 17% in LEED for a very good low energy building versus almost 12% for a zero carbon building seems better value! The calculations are more onerous for ASHRAE than for Part L.

The other main difference in LEED is that Green Power is rewarded, whereas in BREEAM contracts with green energy suppliers is not rewarded.

Materials & Resources

MRP1 relates to storage for recyclable waste. This is similar to BREEAM but the areas required are much greater – almost double at smaller floor areas and 1.5 times as large at higher floor areas.

LEED generally deals in percentage improvements rather than absolute values. This applies to the reuse of materials too. There are a number of additional credits to BREEAM where items such as rapidly renewable materials, local materials and reuse of interior elements are rewarded.

Rather than focus on an accreditation scheme and chain of paperwork (which Mat 5 in BREEAM now uses), the intentions are stated and it is up to the assessor and design teams discretion to ensure compliance is met.

There is still a focus in both schemes for rewarded recycling rather than reducing waste in the first place.

Indoor Environmental Quality

IEQP1 relates to ASHRAE 62.1. There is no BREEAM equivalent as minimum ventilation rates are covered by Building Regulations.

IEQ1, IEQ2, IEQ3 and IEQ5 are quite sophisticated and beyond any current UK requirements. BREEAM does not reward well designed mechanically ventilated systems. If a building requires mech vent, LEED may well be the better accreditation to go for.

IEQ7.1 requires ability to measure post-occupancy thermal comfort. This is far and beyond BREEAM or CIBSE, but is picked up in BSRIA’s soft landing framework.

IEQ8 covers daylight and is similar in scope but uses a different methodology to BREEAM.

Weightings

Whilst LEED does not convert points into a percentage in the same way that BREEAM does, there was a considerable change in allocation of points per credit between LEED 2.0 and LEED 2009 which means there is now an implicit weighting. As this article points out, the new credit weightings heavily favor urban projects.

Comparing the weightings per credits for LEED 2.0 vs. LEED 2009

admin Accreditation BREEAM, LEED