Elemental

These are my links for May 21st through May 24th:

• Two thirds of firms ‘unprepared’ for carbon legislation | ITworld - "At the moment most organisations are just using guess work," he said. "This can't continue. In the same way that financial auditors wouldn't accept guesses as to an organisation's cash position, environmental auditors are unlikely to accept guesses on energy use."
• Scotland should aim higher than clusters of urban lumps, complete with useless ‘gob ons’ - Herald Scotland | Business | Markets & Economy - "What might we better achieve with all this public money?<br />
  Well, in that final leaders’ debate Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg uttered the unfashionable words: “council houses”. Perhaps if we set-aside our prejudiced stereotyped idea of grimy estates, decent quality council houses are exactly what we should be spending public money on.<br />
  Clegg also raised the issue of VAT. Newbuild is zero-rated, but repair and renewal attracts the full 17.5%. This hugely tips the balance towards greenfield building sites, and away from refurbishing our existing stock. There are hundreds of thousands of empty properties lying vacant in our towns and cities.<br />
  Readjusting VAT to encourage the repair of these would deliver more homes for every pound invested, fortify existing communities, reduce car-dependency, and create more jobs (repair being more labour-intensive)."
• Green ArchiTEXT: Flavorpill: Brad Pitt and the Trouble with Vernacular Architecture - Interesting article on an issue I hadn't really been following - the re-building of New Orleans: "Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the designs of the Make It Right (MIR) houses in New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward continue to transform the city and influence post-disaster vernacular in America. They also continue to stir discussion, and plenty of critique, from a broad spectrum of architects – certainly from preservationists, who complain the MIR designs are not New Orleans enough, and even from a few sustainability advocates who question whether these unique designs truly offer a cohesive sense of community, even whether they are replicable elsewhere."
• CIRIA survey - CIRIA is co-ordinating a programme that aims to assess the feasibility of identifying a widely acceptable method for construction contractors to effectively measure and report their project-based carbon footprints to clients and principal contractors. The first stage of the programme involves gathering information on current practice across the construction industry. We welcome responses to our questionnaire.
• GRIHA - Home - GRIHA, an acronym for Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment, is the National Rating System of India. It has been conceived by TERI and developed jointly with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Government of India. It is a green building 'design evaluation system', and is suitable for all kinds of buildings in different climatic zones of the country.
• Security guard admits he hacked hospital PCs • The Register - Last summer, Federal prosecutors charged McGraw with planning a "massive" denial of service attack on the HVAC system. He allegedly scheduled it for the July 4 Independence Day holiday, when it wouldn't be uncommon for temperatures to exceed 100 degrees Fahrenheit. He called it "Devil's Day."
• Green Building Certifications to Cover 53 Billion Square Feet of Space by 2020 « Pike Research - "According to a May 2010 report from Pike Research, space covered by green building certification programs will increase from 6 billion square feet worldwide in 2010 to 53 billion square feet by 2020. While LEED and BREEAM will continue to dominate the North American and European green building markets, respectively, Pike Research anticipates that newly developed programs in China and India will represent about 30% of all certified green new construction by 2020."
• Why Planting Farms in Skyscrapers Won’t Solve Our Food Problems | Food | AlterNet - Cox and Van Tassel decimate the arguments for vertical food. Very good article. As always with these ideas, ask what problem is it that they are trying to fix? What is the intention?
• PLoS ONE: Energy Sprawl or Energy Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat for the United States of America - Interesting paper: "The land-use intensity of different energy production techniques varies over three orders of magnitude, from 1.9–2.8 km2/TW hr/yr for nuclear power to 788–1000 km2/TW hr/yr for biodiesel from soy. In all scenarios, temperate deciduous forests and temperate grasslands will be most impacted by future energy development, although the magnitude of impact by wind, biomass, and coal to different habitat types is policy-specific. Regardless of the existence or structure of a cap-and-trade bill, at least 206,000 km2 will be impacted without substantial increases in energy efficiency, which saves at least 7.6 km2 per TW hr of electricity conserved annually and 27.5 km2 per TW hr of liquid fuels conserved annually. Climate policy that reduces carbon dioxide emissions may increase the areal impact of energy, although the magnitude of this potential side effect may be substantially mitigated by increases in energy efficiency."
• Passivhaus Refurb: Passivhaus and the planning system - Loving this blog: "The UK planning system does not fit well with the Passivhaus approach, which involves much more upfront, detailed design work than a traditional build. Normally, an architect produces an outline design with just enough detail to satisfy the planners; the point being not to commit more resources than necessary until after planning permission has been given. In any Passivhaus project, but particularly in ours, which is much more challenging because we are new to Passivhaus in the UK and because it is a refurb, more work is needed to be sure we would meet the Passivhaus standard before the planning application can be submitted. If we had submitted our plans earlier, we would have locked in window sizes and other variables that have a significant bearing on the building's energy performance. We have found getting down to the key Passivhaus standard for heating of 15kWh/m2 per annum quite difficult, without throwing silly money at some exotic materials."

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These are my links for April 9th through April 13th:

• Building4Change : Bring disciplines together and get out more, Lovelock warns scientists - POE vs. DSM - similar case in point: "Lovelock also warned that scientists should not regard computer modelling as a substitute for traditional research methods in measuring and tackling climate change. He added: "It is difficult to get the scientific community to go out and measure. They model instead, and sometimes they even look it up on Google. It is utterly necessary to go out and measure.""
• Morrell champions retrofit over eco-towns | News | Architects Journal - [AJ paywall] Morrell on fine form as usual: "Morrell also criticised the government’s eco-town plans: ‘There were nine or 10 [eco-towns] and now there are two,’ he said. ‘That’s Darwin at work and God bless him.’<br />
  Touching on the aims of the government’s feed-in tariff, commissioned last week, Morrell said: ‘We’ve made a big mistake with on-site renewables. I suspect they became a depredation of site value without any massive benefit, and I wonder whether what we’re doing is incentivising the same mistake in a new shape.’"
• Howls of indignation from every corner - The Regeneration Blog - I'm in serious danger of becoming a total Jackie Sadek fangirl: "While I am all for people being able to give their views, comprehensively, both in private and in open forum (and, more importantly, understand they'll be listened to) I do not expect my community in South Kilburn - or anywhere else come to that - to be able to make informed decisions as amateurs, posing as planners (four years training) or architects (seven years training) or what have you, let alone be able to do sufficient NPV calculations to underpin funding proposals or development appraisals.<br />
  Why should they? They're far too busy, doing their own jobs and bringing up their children."
• Building Star Legislation Promises Funding for Retrofits - BuildingGreen.com - Not yet passed through Congress, but interesting: "The two-part bill creates rebates for products and services as well as a package of tax incentives, grants, and low-interest loans for building owners. Rebates would cover insulation, equipment, and lighting as well as services such as energy audits and building commissioning (see table). The bill would also increase the Energy-Efficient Commercial Buildings Tax Deduction from $1.80/ft2 to $3.00/ft2 ($19–$32/m2). Other incentives would be available for variable-speed drives for motors and chillers and Energy Star (reflective) roofs; building owners could take the incentive or the rebate for these products, but not both. Finally, the bill creates a loan program to cover those portions of a retrofit not covered by the rebate program."
• New SEED Standard Introduced - Green Standards, Green Building, Economics - residentialarchitect Magazine - "…a group of architects, designers, activists, and community leaders unveiled a new standard called SEED (Social Economic Environmental Design). …SEED will provide guidance, evaluation, and certification for the social, economic, and environmental relevance of design projects.<br />
  He [Bryan Bell] and a group of collaborators have put five years of work into developing SEED and the SEED Evaluator, an online tool that helps users through the process of creating a socially, economically, and environmentally sensible building or community. The Evaluator addresses issues such as public safety, job creation, and sanitation, to name just a few. And it requires strong evidence of community participation and input for a project to be eligible for SEED certification.<br />
  A group of third-party certifiers will review submitted projects to determine whether they satisfy the SEED criteria."
• Tax, tax, tax and more tax – a rallying cry for construction | Brickonomics - So is there anyone who thinks a carbon tax would be a bad thing?: "The central point is: why generate elaborate policies if they ignoring the blindingly obvious that energy is absurdly cheap if it is doing the damage we think it is to the planet?<br />
  There is of course one clinching argument for taking the simple taxation route to carbon reduction – it should reduce the amount of pious preaching we have to endure from senior executives and politicians who, in all probability, have produced in their lifetime yeti-sized carbon footprints."

admin News carbon, ecotomwns, FiT, funding, Lovelock, refurbishment, regeneration, renewables, retrofit, SEED, tax

These are my links for February 22nd through February 23rd:

• House 2.0: Dickon Robinson - "(Dickon Robinson) made some interesting observations about social housing, particularly so as he has been so intimately involved in it at Peabody. He recalled that the original council houses, built in the 20s and 30s, were only available to people who had jobs, and that they were regularly inspected by council officials to see that they were being properly cared for — these selection criteria were relaxed after WW2, when many families had to be rehoused. He then suggested that for some, social housing had become "deeply dis-empowering" because tenure was secure, rents were low and thus it "stopped you having to get up in the morning." He also spoke out against pepper-potting, the current practice of mixing affordable with private housing, the logic being to avoid building ghettos. He thought it hadn't been a great success and that, by and large, people were happier living with neighbours of similar social standing. Interesting thoughts, running counter to the prevailing mainstream"
• two roads to solving the refurb crisis – part 2 « carbon limited - Great post from Casey - read both: "Here are my problems with using the SO to fund retrofit:
  1. It’s unfair – everyone pays, while only a small proportion of households get a retrofit in a given year
  2. It’s inappropriate – you’re asking the big energy companies to transform the energy market when their mission is the diametric opposite
  3. It’s a false market – government loves to let the market solve problems (quite right too!) but the supplier obligation isn’t a market, it’s just regulation. Large energy companies may be motivated to find the least cost option but not where the results would threaten their core business. This includes opening up the energy market to new players.
  PAYS on the other hand only affects those whose houses are refurbed and should keep bills steady rather than increase them. And done correctly, it could create a very large market of small and medium businesses, spawning competition and innovation."
• Living with rats: Stop talking about the knowledge economy. Start building a wisdom economy. - As always, a thought provoking post from Julian Dobson: "The knowledge economy is competitive. The wisdom economy is collaborative. The knowledge economy assumes that if we can know that bit more than others, we will get what they have or keep them from getting what we have. It believes in dog eat dog. The wisdom economy says dogs do better when they hunt in packs. It sees knowledge as something to be shared and built collaboratively. It is highly suspicious of the intellectual property industry and the crowd of litigators and branding experts who hang on its coat-tails. Where the knowledge economy is amoral - your disadvantage is of no concern as long as I am succeeding - the wisdom economy accepts at a profound level that your disadvantage is my problem."
• At last the Tories nail their planning colours to the mast - just in time for Bura@20 ! - The Regeneration Blog - Jackie Sadek comments on the Tory Green Planning paper: "Community engagement is really very hard to get right, particularly in areas of deprivation, and almost impossible in areas where there is wide disparity of household income. It just feels a bit naive; "Planning for Real" was always a little fanciful (almost hippie-like) and there now seems to be some sort of romantic notion that we can become like the people in "Passport to Pimlico".
  Frankly the Cameron claim that Open Source Planning "will mend our broken planning system" is really a very strong one. The claim that "it'll help to build stronger communities and help to mend our broken society too" is eye-wateringly ambitious indeed. The ideologue in me (still alive and kicking) would like to think it's worth giving it a go, but this policy is going to have to be implemented by people who really know what they are doing."
• Argument Against Environmental Benefits of Locally-Grown Food - Not unbiased by any stretch, but some valid arguments: "The report explains that linear travel miles are not indicative of total energy use and therefore not necessarily a valid measure of the environmental impact of moving food over long distances. Instead of total miles traveled, the report states that the energy use per unit of food moved paints a more accurate picture of overall energy use…Shipping eggs across then entire U.S. by tractor-trailer to a grocery retailer is still the most fuel-efficient, eco-friendly option, said the report. This underscores the tremendous efficiency achieved through modern transportation systems and economies of scale. While the report did not examine all food products, it does conclude that “food should be grown where the agricultural resources and capacity are most suited to efficient food production,” rather than close to population centers."
• Introduction : Future Venice - I found Rachel Armstrong via TED talks - this looks intriguing: "It is hoped that, since it is possible to design the metabolism of a protocell, a type of protocell might be engineered to capture carbon dioxide from a solution and turn it into its solid carbonate form to produce “pearls” of solid carbon dioxide. This system would form the basis for a new carbon-fixing building material. Early stage experiments to test this hypothesis are currently being conducted."

admin News co2, Economics, food, Housing, Knowledge, miles, PAYS, planning, protocell, refurbishment, retrofit, SO, UK, wisdom

These are my links for December 11th through December 17th:

• Is global warming unstoppable? - Another nutty theory or not?: "Garrett says his study's key finding "is that accumulated economic production over the course of history has been tied to the rate of energy consumption at a global level through a constant factor."
  That "constant" is 9.7 (plus or minus 0.3) milliwatts per inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar. So if you look at economic and energy production at any specific time in history, "each inflation-adjusted 1990 dollar would be supported by 9.7 milliwatts of primary energy consumption," Garrett says….
  "Economists think you need population and standard of living to estimate productivity," he says. "In my model, all you need to know is how fast energy consumption is rising. The reason why is because there is this link between the economy and rates of energy consumption, and it's just a constant factor.""
• Kevin McCloud is a Big Hit at TGR/RIBA Conference - "The challenge of combining sustainability and conservation issues were thoroughly debated at the conference with input from conservation officers, architects and engineers. Some questioned the need to debate this issue when there are ‘only’ 380,000 historic buildings in the UK - perhaps we should be concentrating on the many thousands of non-historic buildings that are below current standards of sustainability.
  Others wanted to discuss what should be tackled first and what makes most carbon sense. The contrast between the photovoltaic panels at the nearby Heelis project costing £450,000 and only contributing 10-15% of the building’s electrical needs and Kevin McCloud’s modest but effective eco-refurb of a terraced house in Manchester reducing carbon emissions by over 30% but only costing just over £2,000 could not have been sharper."
• ‘Sustainability’ is a dangerous mirage - Building Design - Owen's on top form: "It’s the very term “sustainability”, which has enabled even Dubai to present itself as if it is touching lightly upon the earth, that is at fault. What exactly is it that we want to “sustain”? Humanity? Nature? Capitalism? As a slogan it’s as awful as “save the planet”. The planet is safe, it’s we who are in danger.
  The problem with the rhetoric of sustainability is that, as a buzzword, it serves to fill the ethical void in the apocalyptic capitalism of the last 30 years. So, we get sustainable supermarkets, green-roofed car parks, carbon neutral desert cities, all of which are a kind of architectural offsetting as moronic as its economic equivalent. A hundred new industrial towns can have the mirage of Dongtan projected onto them. The recent demise of the British “eco-towns” is the pettier version of the same failure."
• Controlling dew point - 2009-11-19 10:00:00 | Consulting-Specifying Engineer - Excellent article (ASHRAE/US bias) which explains the principles of designing to dew point rather than relative humidity: "Not so long ago, HVAC designers did not have to be especially concerned with humidity. With plenty of cheap energy, the industry could afford to wallop the air with heavy-duty cooling to dry it, then fry it with reheat to keep it from freezing the occupants."
• Building4Change : European research gives blueprint for social sustainability - "Tools, instruments and metrics to foster sustainable communities are biased towards environmental sustainability, a European research project has found. The research, carried out by Oxford Institute for Sustainable Development, provides a blueprint for policymakers on incorporating social sustainability into European urban redevelopment initiatives.
  The report recommends greater integration of socially responsible investment and local authority indicators, alongside increased investment in data gathering to improve understanding of social sustainability. It highlights valuable monitoring systems such as the FootprintR sustainable investment policy, created by developer Igloo"
• Abu Dhabi to set school building eco standard - Building - "A new sustainable building standard is being developed for Abu Dhabi's schools.
  The system is being drawn up by Estidama, the organisation behind the emirate's local sustainability code for the the Abu Dhabi Education Council."
• Futerra Sustainability Communications - leading thinking - Another great guide to communicating sustainable futures from Futerra: "In this guide we argue that climate change is no longer a scientist's problem, it's now a salesman's problem. We call upon government spokespeople, climate campaigners and business advertisers to stop selling visions of hell. Instead we must all create and sell a new vision of a' low carbon heaven'.
  This guide is a new approach for us. Most of our previous thought leadership has been very practical - this is stronger, more opinioned and more controversial. There's still a lot of guidance and original research. But we're not pulling our punches."
  From the report: "Dates, percentages and figures come in action plans, not visions. A 20% cut by 2020 isn’t a vision, it’s a target. Put all the targets together and imagine what the world would be like if we met and exceeded them: that’s a vision."
• Land Securities chief executive accuses Government of lacking courage on sustainability - Modern Building Services - "On the need to dramatically improve the poor energy efficiency of the UK’s existing building stock, he said, ‘Unlike in the USA, the UK always seems to have a reluctance to use carrots and sticks in the tax system to drive behaviour and redirect capital investment. There is good evidence that tax allowances change investment decisions — and these allowances can be temporary.
  ‘I would certainly advocate a much higher level of Enhanced Capital Allowances for investment in energy-saving plant and building adaptations. However, I think the simplest route may be to use the property rates system to reward those who occupy energy-efficient buildings .’"
• Leeds given more power over regeneration - Building - "Rosie Winterton, minister for local government, has signed a programme to give Leeds and its regions more power over housing, planning and regeneration.
  The Leeds City Partnership pilot programme brings together 11 councils, regional partners and central government to create a devolved housing and regeneration board."
• Building4Change : New plant produces energy by mixing fresh water and sea water - "World's first osmotic plant opens, but commercial version will not be available for several years.
  European renewable energy producer Statkraft this month opened the world's first power plant generating energy by mixing fresh water and sea water in Norway.
  The energy is based on the natural phenomenon of osmosis, the transport of water through a semi-permeable membrane. When fresh water meets salt water, substantial amounts of energy are released, which can be used to generate power.
  At the osmotic power plant, fresh water and salt water are guided into separate chambers, divided by an artificial membrane. The salt molecules in the sea water pull the fresh water through the membrane, increasing the pressure on the sea water side. The pressure equals a 120 metre water column, or a significant waterfall, and can be used in a power generating turbine."
• Design Activism: Coming across chemicals: in plastics and in schools - "the main problem with the chemicals is that not enough of them have been properly tested for health effects, and the result is that we only regulate chemicals that we know about. A classic example is BPA, a chemical additive found in bottled water containers, baby bottles and the like. Last year mounting evidence about adverse health effects from BPA caused it to be withdrawn from the market.
  The long term solution to this problem is hatching in the Green Chemistry movement, which is aiming to put the burden of proof of safe chemicals on the manufacturers. Currently a chemical is innocent until proven guilty, however, there are simply too many chemicals and, based on the evidence we do have, no reason to assume their innocence. Proposed green chemistry policies also recognize that health problems might arise for interactive, multiple exposures."
• Ben Casnocha: The Blog: 10 Easily Implementable Life Problem-Solving Strategies - Some great thoughts on procrastination from Ben: ""Can I fail at this?" It's like Raymond Chandler said: there is no success without the possibility of failure. Therefore, something I can't fail at is also something I can't succeed at. I can fail at conducting an interview, writing an essay or making a video. I can't fail at meandering around the internet in search of "neat stuff to read." In a recent tweet, I defined procrastination "the temporary displacement of tasks at which it is possible to fail with tasks at which it is not possible to fail." I suspect I'm less far off the mark than ever, especially regarding why procrastination is not a productive tendency."
• ippr - Institute for Public Policy Research - Left foot forward - "Increased birth rates and an ageing population, coupled with a fall in net immigration into the UK means that natural change, births and deaths – is now responsible for a greater component of the UK’s population increase, rather than immigration.
  But what should a progressive UK population policy look like? It will have to deal with issues such as family size, retirement age, population distribution across the UK, as well as immigration control.
  Attempts to restrict immigration to a zero net immigration level… will have major economic consequences. At present younger immigrants make a greater fiscal contribution than do the older UK-born population. Big restrictions on labour immigration would result in higher taxes, among other outcomes. Fiscal deficits could be alleviated if everyone worked longer… Family impacts on population size, but how would British adults react to being told to stop at two children? What incentives could be offered to families who stop at two?"

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These are my links for November 14th through November 19th:

• Welcome to amazonails - Enerything you ever needed to know about straw bale building.
• Footprint » Common carbon language - "The ‘Common Carbon Metric’ will be piloted by the leading green building rating tools and made available to anyone dedicated to promoting the understanding and development of a low-carbon built environment. The real impact of this initiative lies in the detail which has yet to be announced, but it is an indication of the growing consensus about the role the built environment can play in mitigating climate change."
• Publications - News & Publications | BioRegional: solutions for sustainability - via Hattie at AJ, I find that BioRegional are making lots of their reports free. Will be interesting to read the One Planet Communities and compare to BREEAM, LEED and Estidama. Communities (rather than buildings) will be the buzzword for 2010. Unfortunately Pooran Desai's book is not free, but can be ordered from Amazon.
• marklynas.org | Closed because of geoengineering works - Mark Lynas on geo-engineering (something I'm really not comfortable with): "Geoengineering deeply divides scientists and environmentalists. Should we really consider spraying sulphates into the stratosphere, planting artificial trees across deserts or dumping iron filings in the Pacific as legitimate options to cool down our planet? Kruger, whose preferred solution involves spreading billions of tonnes of lime in the oceans (see cquestrate.com), likens the approach to having an airbag in a car: it’s better not to crash, but also sensible to insure against the risk that the worst will happen. Plus, “the time to design an airbag is before you are skidding on ice”."
• Predicted vs. Actual: Closing the Gap - "Marcus Sheffer, chair of LEED’s Energy and Environment Technical Advisory Group (TAG), shared some ideas under consideration for the next update to the rating system slated for 2012. The group is closely looking at LEED’s energy credits so that energy simulations more accurately predict performance. For example, the TAG is looking at ways to encourage modeling earlier and more frequently in the design process. “We need to change the practice of validation modeling at the end of a project,” said Sheffer. “We need more iterative modeling.” "
  Interesting comment after the article - can we *really* predict performance?
• Three older houses to be Passivhaus retrofitted - "An architects practice is being funded by the Technology Strategy Board to undertake design and feasibity studies into a proposed scheme to retrofit three empty houses to Passivhaus standard. The Retrofit for the Future competition is designed to address the challenge laid down by the government's target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by the year 2050."
• Announcing Living Building Challenge Version 2.0 — ILBI - For those unfamiliar with ILBI, think of it as uber-LEED: "Version 2.0 of the Living Building Challenge expands its focus to local food production, unrestricted access to nature, no gated communities and other equity issues."

admin News accreditation, actual, aletrnative, bales, bioregional, buildings, carbon, climatechange, communities, Energy, environment, geoengineering, globalwarming, ILBI, LEED, materials, metrics, passivhaus, predicted, refurbishment, retrofit, standards, straw, use

These are my links for July 16th through July 19th:

• Crouching Tiger? | Forum For The Future - Excellent article on China. "Government backing for big green ambitions is also in evidence at Tianjin. This industrial port east of Beijing is to be the site of a hugely ambitious new ‘eco-city’, a joint Chinese-Singaporean venture which will shortly enter its first phase with the construction of a 1.5km2-‘eco-business park’. When complete, the city’s 350,000 residents will live in super-efficient buildings clustered in hubs designed to minimise commuting needs, and travel to work by light railway. It’s a lot less ambitious when it comes to energy, however, with only 20% to be sourced from renewables.
  In a country which builds two Manhattan islands’ worth of new floor space every year, there’s an urgent need for such exemplar developments. But Tianjin’s experiment will be watched closely, because such projects in China have often not lived up to expectations. "
• The Lazy Environmentalist: Desertec Industrial Initiative - I don't know how Polly finds the time or energy, but she's got good news for DESERTEC: "The aim is to ensure by 2050 that solar power from the northern Sahara will meet at least 15 percent of European electricity needs and a significant proportion of local electricity demand in the countries of North Africa. The purpose of the newly founded initiative is to clarify the technological issues and create the neccessary political, socio-political and economic foundations and develop a vaible implementation plan within the next three years. The DII is expected to network closely with the scientific community, non-governmental organisations and governement organisations. The DESERTEC Foundation will play a central role in this respect."
• how good is PAYS? « carbon limited - Great explanation from Casey on how PAYS might work (or not). The long and the short of it: "Even at this broad brush level, it’s clear that there will be a significant shortfall here. PAYS will not, single handedly, solve the existing stock problem. Someone else – either government or homeowners – are going to have to stump up and the costs are likely to be high."
• Sustainable Homes - This could open the doors for more LA's to impose CSH (and BREEAM?) levels for planning conditions: "Chelmsford Borough Council requires that Code for Sustainable Homes Level 3 is achieved as a planning condition for new buildings. The developer appealed against this condition but following consideration by the Planning Inspectorate the condition was held as "reasonable and necessary"."

admin News africa, China, CSH, CSP, desertec, Energy, Europe, existing, PAYS, planning, refurbishment, sahara

These are my links for May 26th through June 1st:

• Concentration Solar Power Module Integrates Into Side And Roof Of Buildings - min-CSP - intriguing but no data in the article to back up the theory: "The system, of which the international patent has already been requested, consists of a stationary lens and a linear absorber plate that concentrates sunlight to generate energy. This concentration system reduces the space that until now was needed with traditional plates, which move around in search of sunlight"
• UK Climate Impacts Programme - Socio-economic scenarios - Getting quite old now (Feb 2001) but sets forward 4 potential scenarios for socio-economic situations against which climate change will play out in the UK :
  1. National Enterprise
  2. Local Stewardship
  3. World Markets
  4. Global Sustainability
  At 140 pages, it's not a quick read, but useful resource.
• A glimpse of the future as 56% of surveyors see workload fall (Brickonomics) - More sound commentary from Brian: "But for all the figures on workload, the two bits of data that will probably reflect most the long-term effects of the recession are those for employment and for profit margins. Both continue to look grim.
  It may sound like a management course cliché but one of the biggest weaknesses of the construction industry is one of its biggest strengths, its flexibility.
  And this weakness is exaggerated by the easy willingness of firms to work at below cost.
  My recollection of the 1990s recession was the less damage was done by falling workloads, which the industry's flexibility can absorb without huge stresses, than was done by winning work below true cost or at unsustainable thin margins."
• Monbiot.com » How Much Should We Leave in the Ground? - I had wondered about this before - good to see George has done the math for me: "Even ignoring all unconventional sources and all other greenhouse gases and taking the most optimistic of the figures in the two Nature papers, we can afford to burn only 61% of known fossil fuel reserves between now and eternity." This would result in a 2ºC rise in temperature. Adaptation, here we come…
• Monbiot.com » Crash Landing - Monbiot being unusually level headed: "we were told by both the airline companies and the Confederation of British Industry that business flights were necessary and non-negotiable: civilisation would collapse if executives weren’t able to fly whenever and wherever they wished. The government repeated this creed, insisting that the UK economy was dependent on the expansion of Heathrow. Now we learn that these are the first expenses to be cut when a contraction begins. Businesses are discovering that there are other means of engaging with people overseas, such as email, video-conferencing and an outlandish new device called the telephone."
• ACE - If we can’t count the buildings, how can we plan cuts in emissions? - There's an elephant in the room, and his name is data: "There is no definitive data showing precisely what the carbon footprint of Europe's buildings is. So we can have no confidence we can identify precisely what percentage of the carbon dioxide emissions by end use comes from space heating as opposed to water heating, lights and appliances as opposed to cooking."
• Why Has Globalization Led to Bigger Cities? - Economix Blog - NYTimes.com - Great article on cities with a slant on India: "The right response to the problems of megacities is not to get misty-eyed about village life, but rather to work to improve the quality of infrastructure in those growing urban areas."
• FT.com | The Undercover Economist | Dear Economist: Can you help me to stop procrastinating? - How to cope with procrastination: "The behavioural economists Dan Ariely and Klaus Wertenbroch conducted an instructive study of procrastination with three groups of students at MIT. Each group had to complete three assignments over the course of the 12-week course. The first group had a separate deadline for each paper, after four, eight and 12 weeks. The second group had no intermediate deadlines: all three papers were due at the end of the course. Students in the third group were asked to impose their own deadlines.
  Students with well-spaced deadlines – those in the first group and a subset in the third who had spaced out their deadlines – tended to achieve the highest grades. Students who had assigned themselves no intermediate deadlines, or had been assigned none, fared poorly."
• A new era for public health? « - "Yet one group of very important people now admit they too have neglected the issue. The latest edition of The Lancet – probably the world’s leading medical journal – says health professionals “have barely begun to engage with what should be the focal point for their research, preparedness planning and advocacy”. Now doctors see climate change as “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century”.
  The Lancet calls for a “new public health advocacy movement” to usher in an unprecedented era of co-operation between widely divergent spheres such as disease, food, water, sanitation, shelter, settlements, extreme events, population and movement.”"
• Prince fails on sustainability - Building Design - A bit late getting to this one - Amanada takes on Charles: "This is where the speech unravelled for in making out “experimentation” to be a terrifying leap in the dark rather than something good based on hypotheses and a body of knowledge he came across as an intellectual Luddite, whose only solution is to retreat into a Hobbit-like world of organic earthy buildings and no cars."
• Carbon-effective refurbishment - Modern Building Services - Ant Wilson calls for an integrated approach to refurbished buildings: "At the same time, the lower metre could be well insulated and fitted with photovoltaics (PVs) and internally lined with phase-change boards. Emerging concentrated photovoltaic energy generation (CPV has around 1000 times less embedded energy than conventional PVs, and its price is falling rapidly, which will improve the cost-effectiveness of building-integrated PV in coming years."

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These are my links for April 7th through April 9th:

• Insulation is king - part 2 - "When NOT to insulate
  Some properties, typically built before 1940, have no vertical damp proof course (VDPC) around the windows. They rely on the ventilation in the cavity to stop rainwater penetrating to the inside wall. In this case you will need to either insert a VDPC or not fill the cavity.
  In any house, cavity wall insulation will reduce ventilation, preventing natural moisture build-up from being removed. So if you have cavity wall insulation make sure you also have trickle vents or extract fans."
• Interior Design Trends - Garden Landscaping Ideas - Beautiful Homes | Maryland - Northern Virginia - Washington, DC - Passivhaus - Always interesting to see reactions to Passivhaus (more desirable than LEED?):
  "The thought of a home so efficient that it doesnt need a HVAC system is quite intriguing, and for some, more desirable than a LEED cert. The PeakOiler's will love it. Of course, our HVAC contractor might not like the concept too much, but hey, there's still ductwork to run and an ERV to take care of. …
  Another one of my concerns is that the home is that the home I've seen are necessarily boxy and without much exterior detail. According to Katrin Klingenberg, an architect who built one of these in Champagne Urbana, IL, "The surface/volume ration has to be very good… you do not want to have a lot of nooks sticking out of your house… because you lose energy". This runs counter to our typical bungalow designs that are quite high on the nook and cranny ratio."
• Forestry Commission - The Trees and Design Action Group - via Hatty at the AJ Footprint blog (an excellent blog, BTW), "No trees, no future" report from Forestry commission.
• Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air: the Freakonomics of conservation, climate and energy - Boing Boing - Great review from Cory of David McKay's Without Hot Air. I think I'm going to have to cave and buy on paper - I've not opened the electronic version I downloaded months ago and this review really makes me want to read it.
• Reinventing America’s Cities - The Time Is Now - NYTimes.com - "With their crowded neighborhoods and web of public services, cities are not only invaluable cultural incubators; they are also vastly more efficient than suburbs. But for years they have been neglected, and in many cases forcibly harmed, by policies that favored sprawl over density and conformity over difference.
  Such policies have caused many of our urban centers to devolve into generic theme parks and others, like Detroit, to decay into ghost towns. They have also sparked the rise of ecologically unsustainable gated communities and reinforced economic disparities by building walls between racial, ethnic and class groups.
  Correcting this imbalance will require a radical adjustment in how we think of cities and government’s role in them. At times it will mean destruction rather than repair. And it demands listening to people who have spent the last decade imagining and in many cases planning for more sustainable, livable and socially just cities."

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These are my links for March 11th through March 15th:

• The Building Futures Game - Building Futures - The Building Futures Game is the outcome of 3 years research and development work carried out by the Building Futures team, CABE and architectural practice AOC. The toolkit emerged through a shared desire as to how one might enable communities to think about the future of their neighbourhood, while providing stakeholders with an interactive and alternative way of consulting with a wide variety of groups on their concerns and aspirations.
• Disney Aims for Zero Carbon Emissions, Zero Waste in New Environmental Goals | GreenerBuildings - "The corporate responsibility report lays out seven long-term environmental goals for the company:
  • Zero waste.
  • Zero net direct greenhouse gas emissions from fuels.
  • Reduce indirect greenhouse gas emissions from electricity consumption.
  • Net positive impact on ecosystems.
  • Minimize water use.
  • Minimize product footprint.
  • Inform, empower and activate positive action for the environment"
• T-Zero - "T-ZERO is a free internet tool that provides independent sustainable refurbishment advice to users, with the option of linking directly to the suppliers, manufacturers, and installers of any measures you choose. It is designed for those refurbishing their own homes, homes they manage, or the homes of clients, taking you through a series of simple steps."
• How to Grow Your Own Fresh Air - TED 2009 « GreenSpaces Blog - More 'healthy' plants (I'm slightly obsessed with the original NASA study - spider plants are *good*). Mother in Law's tongue for bedroom, and Areca Palm for living room.
• Welcome to YouCanPlan - via Be2Camp and then EcoBuild: "Our idea is based on the concept of ‘enabled self procurement’ or ESP to help build new sustainable communities. ESP is a process where future residents of communities are supported as the developers of their own homes, combining the choice of self build with the efficiency of speculative development."
• Green for go: sustainability in the JCT contract - Building - "Following an industry-wide consultation, it published Building a Sustainable Future Together, a guidance note which is principally concerned with how sustainability in design and construction is provided for in contract documents. It also includes new contract clauses that extend those currently in JCT contracts, such as the Framework Agreement. The two principal new clauses are:
  1) The contractor is encouraged to suggest economically viable amendments to the employer's requirements which, if instructed as
  a variation, may result in improvement in environmental performance in the carrying out of the works or of the completed works
  2) The contractor shall provide to the employer all the information that he reasonably requests regarding the environmental impact of the supply and use of materials and goods which the contractor selects."
• A second look at solar power on roofspace « lightbucket - Lightbucket doesn't blog often, but when he (she?) does, they're worth reading.
  "Averaged over the year, rooftop PV can exactly match England’s electricity sales, but there is a huge seasonal variation. During the summer, PV output is higher than the full-year average, but electricity demand is lower, so PV can supply more than twice the total demand. The situation reverses in midwinter. In December, the month of lowest insolation, rooftop solar PV can meet only 20% of electricity demand. Additional capacity will be needed to meet winter demand. Energy storage technologies can smooth out variations in output over a 24-hour timecale, and maybe longer, but certainly not over 6 months.
  If we had solar photovoltaics on all roofspace in England, we could comfortably meet England’s summertime electricity use, but only a fifth of wintertime electricity use."
• Ten things to manage in a recession: 4 - executive costs « pwcom 2.0 - Paul illustrates Charles Handy's 'Hollywood' model perfectly: "… some AEC professionals have already opted to work as freelances or as independent consultants, undertaking a succession of contracts of their own choice instead of working for an employer. Particularly in the consultancy sector, just as small firms might combine with others with complementary skills and/or resources, so experienced individual professionals could combine with other independent practitioners to compete for work and then form part of the multi-disciplinary team appointed to undertake the project. …. Being formed of a group of independent ‘e-lances’ or ‘tech-nomads’, the operational overheads of such a multi-disciplinary consortium are also likely to be lower, making their services more cost-effective – an advantage likely to be underlined if the team also uses low-cost collaboration technology to manage and share its data."
• You are the weakest link, goodbye - Joan has a list of funny/tragic redundancy stories.
• cityofsound: Work and The City, Frank Duffy (2008) - Good review of Duffy's book: "In particular, Work and the City convincingly details how this has led to a grossly inefficient under-utilisation of resources with damaging effects on individuals, corporations, and almost all aspects of urban ecosystem."
• Sustainability Consulting: What is it, and am I qualified? Part I « Bright Green Talent Musings (www.brightgreentalent.com) - And I count myself amongst those who say sustainability is NOT a discipline: "As individuals from all kinds of backgrounds and industries push into the field of sustainability consulting, it can become murky as to what that work even entails. This is especially true when considering the different perspectives and methodologies that are employed and adding even more complexity is the variability among clients and their needs. Thus, this quote sums up for me what sustainability consultants are trying to do - they help businesses address and redress the way in which they operate so that they will be better positioned for the market of the future a la decreasing their negative impact on the natural environment. Some argue that like the trends of international business and e-commerce, sustainability will at some point cease to be its own discipline and assume its rightful place within all of business practices."
• » Perpetual beta SuDoBE — Sustainable Design of the Built Environment - Chris makes a great point: "What would happen if we treated buildings as being in perpetual beta state? How would this change things in the construction industry? Perhaps developers and the design team would make a long term commitment to upgrading the building in line with occupants’ (and others’) experiences after the building’s initial release.
  Of course buildings, like most artefacts are in perpetual beta. There are always ‘bugs’ to iron out and features that don’t work. Many of our new low and zero carbon buildings will fail either from the outset or a few months or years down the line. It would be a real step forward if we could admit that now and put in place the mechanisms that will allow us to decide whether they are working as intended, to fix them when they aren’t and to pass on what we have learned to Carbon 2.0. Would the industry allow us to do that? Do we need to ask?"
• Robinson Low Francis to slash staff pay 12.5% - Building - I'm sure this is just the same as cutting salaries by 20-40% - surely they'll just end up doing a similar amount of work, in fewer (probably longer) days (was my experience of working part-time, anyway): "At engineer Scott Wilson, some senior staff have agreed to work three- or four-day weeks, according to Jerome Monro-Lafon, its UK managing director."
• Survey confirms building control officers enforce regs - Building - "The LABC’s survey looked at 2000 projects to see how many potential contraventions would have occurred if a building control officer hadn’t stepped in and enforced the regulations. It found Part A attracted the most enforcement action with building control officers asking for remedial action in 18% of projects followed by Part L at just over 16% and Part B at just under 16%. Part G which deals with hygiene attracted enforcement action in just 1.5% of the surveyed projects."
• Natural lighting and sustainability | Sustainable Building Blog - Building Sustainable Design - "The tightening regulatory allowances placed on artificial lighting are already beginning to push the limits of what lighting technology can deliver. Our regulatory framework must not become unworkable or breed dull, unhealthy and uninteresting visual environments. The lighting community must steer regulation through better government lobbying, but we should not forget the place natural light has in avoiding the need for regulation in the first place."
• Pursuing the Elusive Goal Of a Carbon-Neutral Building by Richard Conniff: Yale Environment 360 - "But Kroon is also a reminder of what even some of the best hearts and minds in the sustainable design movement cannot yet achieve. For a “green premium” unofficially estimated at about 5.7 percent of construction cost, the Kroon design team managed to reduce projected energy use and emissions by 61 percent below the levels for a comparable building of conventional design. The biggest savings came not from sexy new technologies but from figuring out how to make the design function like an old-fashioned cathedral, with a slender profile for maximum daylighting, an east-west orientation for greater solar gain on the long southern exposure, careful use of shading, and plenty of stone and concrete to store thermal energy. A solar photovoltaic array and geothermal wells will supply much of the remaining energy load. “We got damned close to carbon neutral,” boasted a construction manager…"
• Sustainable Cities - The most useful output I've seen from CABE - sustainable cities website. A feast of information and examples: "This website gives expert advice on planning, designing and managing a sustainable place. It cuts through the complexity with clear priorities for action. And it shows which places are getting it right."
• Constructing Excellence in the Built Environment » Blog Archive » Reverting to type (by Don Ward) - Don Ward has a great post: "The industry loves lowest price tendering - it invented it, and back in 1963 codified it in the NJCC’s code of practice for single stage tendering. Large parts of the industry have since conspired with clients over the years to continue with lowest price tendering – it is easy, and it means you don’t have to work too hard to deliver on value. But let’s face it, it usually knowingly sets the project up to fail. It’s a bizarre process - as a questioner said at a conference the other day put on by the Universities of Reading, Loughbrough and Salford, construction must be the only industry that competes to deliver the same thing for the client rather than something different? And is it the only industry that thinks it’s clever to make its money by screwing the client and/or the supply chain?"

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These are my links for July 25th through August 5th:

• New Infrastructure Levy will help communities thrive and give developers certainty - Housing and Planning minister Caroline Flint announced further details of the Government's plans for a groundbreaking Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) today, which will support local communities by raising funding for new schools, hospitals, transport schemes, libraries, parks and leisure centres.
• Carbon Trust Professional Services Partnerships | Carbon Trust - The Carbon Trust incubator scheme, which accelerates the commercialisation of promising low-carbon businesses, has announced partnerships with business advisory firm Grant Thornton and law firm Mills & Reeve LLP, to provide corporate finance and legal advisory support to its incubator companies.
• A Learning History of Low Carbon Innovation in Local Authorities - Looks like a fascinating blog: This Blog website charts a current history of how carbon reduction is coming about in Local Authorities in 2008. A handful of councils are known to have made great strides. Other councils are making changes too, but are less well known for it. What are their stories? And others are feeling blocked and disempowered from bringing about change. Why is this? What are the common themes and challenges?
• Slow Travel: Where do you begin? - Ed Gillespie (of Futerra and the blog Slow Travel) takes Micheal O'Leary to task over the recent Times article. Hilarious (although MO'L has clearly lost his marbles).
• How To Concentrate - via Brad Feld, a 1930 article on how to concentrate (or think, to put it another way). Good read, very GTD "When harassed by the three devils; hurry, worry, and fear, the mind never has a fair chance to center on anything"
• Building a Greener Britain - via Mark Brinkley, an FMB report on Greening the Existing UK housing stock - specically looking at policy changes.36 page pdf to download.
• Ethicability test - My love of online psychology tests grows. Are you a philosopher, judge, angel, teacher, enforcer or guardian? I'm a judge and my moral DNA type is PRS.
• How to Save the World - I dip in and out of Dave's blog but recently found this gem: Seven Steps to Business Sustainability model. It's very robust. I would argue that you can think you are at stage 6 without going through 4 and 5 - a detrimental occurrence overall.
• Government launches one-stop shop for adapting to climate change - Building - "We are already starting to see some visionary climate-resistant buildings around Britain. I want builders and designers to follow the lead of the innovators behind these buildings by factoring a changing climate into their plans."

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