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STAR QUALITY NEWS ROUND-UP
GREEN PROPERTY FUNDS
Melbourne centre sets CARBON TRADING GETS PERSONAL
CAN COPENHAGEN DELIVER?
international benchmark COUNTING DOWN TO CRC
GEO-ENGINEERING WITH ALGAE
for green construction
LOW ENERGY SOLUTIONS FOR ENGINEERS
NOVEMBER 2009 | £8 | VOL 1 N0 10
WWW.BSDLIVE.CO.UK

ANDY PEARSON
EDITOR
IT’S COME TO THE CRUNCH
Editor
Andy Pearson
Print and online reporter
Krystal Sim
Art editors
Mark Bergin, Will Martin
Subeditors
Gail Novelle, Teresa Merrigan
Editorial secretary
020 7560 4117
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Matthew Kitson, Roger Madelin,
Barry Nugent, Tanya Ross,
Ken Shuttleworth, Rajesh Sinha,
Lynne Sullivan, Peter Williams
Next generation panel
Dan Cash, Julie Godefroy, Dan Jestico,
James Mackenzie-Burrows,
Emma Marchant, Taariq Mauthoor,
Farah Naz, Susannah Parkin, Atif Rashid,
Sarah Royse, Melissa Stears
Business development and
recruitment director
Gemma Butler
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Key account managers
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jackie.levett@ubm.com
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Building Sustainable Design is published
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ITM Publishing Services. Printed by
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Paper used in this publication is from
sustainably managed sources.
©All editorial contents UBM Built
Environment 2009. ISSN 2040-0500
LEADER 03
The urgency of governments finding agreement at
next month’s Copenhagen Climate Change conference
is highlighted in a report from environmental think-
tank the World Resources Institute (news p7). The
WRI’s analysis makes clear that, so far, pledges to
reduce greenhouse gas emissions fall far short of
what’s needed to avert global disaster.
Politicians speak readily about the need for
action, but for Copenhagen to succeed governments
must commit to even more rigorous emission
reduction targets that are both measurable and
binding. It will not be easy: the UK government has
talked at length about tackling climate change, yet its
own departments are failing to meet carbon reduction
targets according to a report by the Environmental
Audit Committee last summer.
Perhaps the government should take a leaf
out of WSP’s book. As we report (p20), the consultant
has introduced a voluntary scheme to encourage staff
to reduce their personal carbon consumption. Each
participant is given an annual carbon allowance. At the
end of the year, the scheme rewards those with a light
carbon footprint and penalises the heavy-footed, but in
all cases it increases carbon awareness. And it works:
the overall carbon footprint of those taking part fell by
10% in the first year.
The world desperately needs innovative
solutions to cut emissions and for that governments
must look to engineers for the infrastructure to speed
the move to a low carbon economy. New technologies
such as geo-engineering must be funded (see p42). In
particular, governments should ensure that developing
countries get what they need to enable them to
continue to grow their economies in an economically
and environmentally sustainable manner.
Certainly the feedback from BSD’s vox pop of
politicians, engineers and institutions (p30) is that
Copenhagen must set an ambitious framework of
targets if climate change is to be mitigated. Sadly, the
majority of respondents expect no significant
agreement to come out of Denmark. I expect they are
right; but I do hope they are wrong.
ISSUE 10 / BSD NOVEMBER 2009

NEWS & OPINION
08 06 NEWS REVIEW
CRC GOES EASY FOR FIRST YEAR
Participants will only have to report their
carbon emissions rather than buy
allowances for them
RAMBOLL TAKEOVER
Ramboll UK signals new growth strategy
with acquisition of RYB: Konsult
08 NEWS IN PICTURES
DARWIN’S DILEMMA
Chilling out one unwelcome species at the
Natural History Museum extension
24
FEATURES
24 BUILDING ANALYSIS
THE JOY OF SIX
The Melbourne convention centre with a
six-star environmental rating – and they’d
only asked for four
30 PEOPLE
What should (and what will) come out of
the Copenhagen climate change conference
next month? We canvass industry figures
32 MASTERPLANNING
A new tool that helps assess the mix
necessary for truly sustainable
developments
42
TECHNICAL
42 GEO-ENGINEERING
CAN SLIME SAVE THE WORLD?
Covering buildings in carbon-absorbing
algae is one of the proposals in a report
from the IMechE
46 INSULATION
WARM WELCOME IN THE ISLES
Dynamic insulation helps combat the chill
winds of the Orkney Islands
50 PRODUCTS
WATER AND WATER HEATING
Greywater management systems, high
efficiency air source heat pumps, water
disinfection and more…
CONTENTS 05
14 NEWS ANALYSIS
DO GREEN FUNDS STACK UP?
Report on sustainable property
investment funds
19 OPINION
SENSE AND SUSTAINABILITY
The business case for sustainable buildings
is winning over more and more investment
institutions, says Julie Hirigoyen
20 PRACTICE
ON YER BIKE
How consultant WSP is raising emissions
awareness with a personal carbon tracking
scheme for staff
34 EMISSIONS
COUNTDOWN TO CRC DEADLINE
How well will the CRC work when it
becomes mandatory in April? Some fear it
will lack the necessary bite
39 WASTE PREVENTION
WASTE OPPORTUNITIES
Construction waste can be tackled from
the earliest design stages, according to
a new guide from the Waste & Resources
Action Programme
AT THE BACK
52 WWW.BSD4JOBS.COM
Hilson Moran is recruiting in anticipation
of growth in demand for its services in the
UK, Italy, France and the UAE
54 WWW.BSDLIVE.CO.UK
Scott Nursten of NG Bailey goes online for
inspiration, music and handmade Italian
furniture. Just don’t
mention spam…
ISSUE 10 / BSD NOVEMBER 2009
06 NEWS REVIEW
INDUSTRY
UPDATE
CRC goes easy for first year
A central part of the Carbon
Reduction Commitment, due to
begin in April, has been delayed for
a year.
NEWS&OPINION
Participants will not have to buy
annual emissions allowances for the
first year of the scheme, 2010-11, but
simply report their carbon emissions.
The scheme is mandatory for all
organisations with an annual ener-
gy spend of £500,000 or more.
The Department of Energy and
Climate Change (DECC) said the
delay was “to smooth the introduc-
tion of the scheme and to help ease
the upfront costs”.
Some organisations affected by
the scheme welcomed the move, say-
ing it gave them time to adjust to
the initiative.
A spokesman for Guy’s and St
Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in
London said: “It will mean a delay
in the environmental benefits, but
as a participant it gives us more time
to prepare.
“We had done the preparatory
work for the scheme but the extra
time does allow us to manage the
Ramboll takeover
Multidisciplinary consultancy
Ramboll has acquired building serv-
ices company RYB: Konsult for an
undisclosed amount.
This is the first acquisition by
Ramboll UK. The purchase marks
the start of a new style of growth as
the firm strives to become a major
force in UK consulting.
Crispin Matson, director of RYB:
Konsult, has been appointed head
of building services for Ramboll UK.
According to Matson, he and
Ramboll managing director Charles
McBeath discussed the takeover a
year ago, seeing the move as mutu-
ally beneficial.
Matson said: “Ramboll is inter-
BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10
The CRC
uses a
carrot and
stick
approach to
persuade
organisations
to reduce
their carbon
footprints.
transition better and make sure we
get maximum benefits out of the
scheme.”
A spokeswoman for the National
Theatre made similar comments.
“The National Theatre has welcomed
DECC’s announcement, since it will
give us more time to budget for the
purchase of allowances, and to fore-
cast our emission figures more accu-
rately,” she said.
The initiative, which the govern-
ment has renamed the CRC Energy
Efficiency Scheme, uses a carrot and
stick approach to make property
users aware of their emissions and
to encourage them to reduce their
carbon footprints.
It covers gas, oil and any other
fuels used as well as electricity. The
RYB: Konsult was services engineer for Coventry’s refurbished Belgrade Theatre.
ested in expanding its offering and
we can complement their M&E
team, which is traditionally strong
in regions like Glasgow and
Manchester but not so much in
London, where we’re based.”
Matson said that with RYB:
Konsult’s increasing involvement in
price of the allowances has been set
at £12 per tonne of carbon emissions.
The scheme applies to any busi-
ness or organisation with a total
half-hourly metered electricity con-
sumption greater than 6000MWh
a year.
This equates to an annual spend
of about £500,000 or 3000 tonnes of
CO2.
Companies and organisations
that fall into that bracket will have
to forecast their consumption at the
start of each trading year and buy
sufficient carbon allowances to cov-
er the predicted emissions from their
total property estate.
The DECC said that from the sec-
ond year (2011/12), extra weighting
would be given to organisations that
take action early to improve energy
efficiency.
According to the department, by
2020 the scheme is expected to have
delivered emissions savings of at
least 4.4 Mt CO2 a year.
Countdown to CRC deadline, page 34
For more on carbon reduction,
www.bsdlive.co.uk
projects involving large-scale renew-
ables it would be beneficial to learn
from Ramboll’s expertise.
“RYB: Konsult has onsite renew-
ables expertise but less off site. Off
site is where the industry is going
and Ramboll has a huge amount of
expertise in that area.”

World ‘must try harder’
Developed countries’ commit-
ments to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions are insufficient to avert
dangerous climate change,
according to the environmental
think-tank the World Resources
Institute.
The WRI says its analysis shows
that the combined pledges of the
European Union, Japan, Russia,
New Zealand, Australia, Norway,
Belarus, Ukraine, Canada and the
United States would only result in
a 10-24% reduction of global emis-
sions compared with 1990 levels
by 2020.
This reduction would be insuf-
ficient to limit global temperature
rise to 2C above pre-industrial
levels – a target set by the
Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change.
To meet the IPCC’s target,
developed countries will need
to further reduce greenhouse
gas emissions by up to 30% to sta-
bilize concentrations
GLOBAL FOCUS
USA
US President Barack Obama has
signed an executive order
setting tight sustainability goals
for federal agencies.
They are required to set a
2020 greenhouse gas emissions
reduction target in 90 days.
They must also increase energy
efficiency, reduce fleet vehicle
fuel use by 30% and improve
water efficiency by 26%.
Federal government accounts
for almost 500,000 buildings
across the US, operates over
600,000 vehicles and buys
$500bn a year in goods and
services.
of CO2 at 450 parts per million.
At this concentration, the IPCC
says there is a 52% risk that global
temperatures will overshoot the 2C
target.
The WRI is urging industrialised
countries to make more ambitious
pledges to reduce their greenhouse
gas emissions.
Jennifer Morgan, director of
WRI’s climate and energy pro-
gramme, said: “While emission
reduction commitments by these
countries could have an impor-
tant and potentially substantial
impact, they will not be enough
to meet recommendations of the
IPCC.”
The WRI’s report covers pledges
by nations responsible for 98% of
all developed country emissions.
It uses three metrics to com-
pare country commitments – per
capita reductions, emission inten-
sity reductions and absolute
reductions.
UAE
Capita Symonds has opened a new
office in United Arab Emirates
capital Abu Dhabi.
It is the first office the
multidisciplinary consultancy has
opened in the region.
The company says the move is
part of an increased focus on
expanding its international
business.
Mike Wing has been
appointed as regional director and
will be responsible for all
operations and business
development in the UAE and
Middle East region.
IN BRIEF
Big fine for hospital
Liverpool Heart and Chest Hospital
has been fined nearly £48,000 after
a Health and Safety Executive
investigation into unsafe levels of
legionella in the water supply. The
NHS Trust had stopped testing for
legionella despite high levels of the
bacteria being found in May 2002.
The investigation was not able to
conclude whether two patients
who contracted legionnaires’
disease before their deaths in early
2007 were infected at the hospital.
Copenhagen calling
Government representatives from
around the world will gather in
Copenhagen next month for the
Uganda
A team of engineers from Gifford
has won an international
competition to design a low cost,
easy-to-build rural classroom. The
competition was organised by US-
based Architecture for Humanity
and the Open Architecture
NEWS REVIEW 07
BCO winner
“Eye-wateringly beautiful” was the
judges’ description of the Potterrow
Development at the University of
Edinburgh, winner of the British
Council for Offices’ National
Corporate Workplace Award.
Architect for the BREEAM
excellent scheme was Bennetts
Associates while Buro Happold was
the services and structural
engineer. The building, which
houses the School of Informatics,
has displacement ventilation, with
its corridors acting as extract ducts
to channel return air to the atrium,
exposed concrete soffits and CHP.
Judges also praised for the
project for respecting its world
heritage site surroundings.
United Nations Climate Change
Conference. They will discuss a
global agreement to come into
effect once the first commitment
period of the Kyoto Protocol
expires in 2012. Turn to page 30
for our vox pop on what industry
figures think delegates should do,
or go to www.bsdlive.co.uk/blog
to have your say.
UK-GBC conference
The UK Green Building Council’s
new annual conference Making
Sustainable Development Happen
is in London on 24 November. The
event is run in association with
BSD’s sister publication, Building.
See www.ukgbc.org.
Network. Gifford says its design
for a classroom for sub-Saharan
Africa (above) would cost less than
$3000 to erect. The sustainable
structure is designed to be built by
rural communities in countries
such as Uganda.
ISSUE 10 / BSD NOVEMBER 2009
08 NEWS

BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10


IN PICTURES
DARWIN’S
DILEMMA
Have you ever wondered about the
sex life of the museum beetle? No?
Nor had Peter Nissen, of Fulcrum
Consulting, until he embarked on
the environmental design for phase
two of the Darwin Centre at
London’s Natural History Museum,
writes Will Jones.
“The guiding principle for our
scheme was the protection of the
collection,” says Nissen. “The three
main risks to the specimens are
degeneration while they are out
of the stable archive environment;
the rate of change in environmental
conditions as the specimens are
moved between archive and
laboratory; and, potentially most
dangerous, the museum beetle.”
This diminutive intruder, about a
centimetre long with mottled black
and white scales, feasts on dead
organic material. A bad infestation
can destroy a collection. The
problem here was that no one
could guarantee the historic
specimens were free of the beetles.
The eight-storey extension, which
resembles a giant silk cocoon,
houses 20 million precious examples
of animals and plants.
Fulcrum learnt that the beetles
would die off if the temperature
were maintained at 15C, but that
would make the archives too cold
for staff to work in for any length of
time. If the temperature were a
more comfortable 20C, the beetles
would thrive. At 17C (+/-1.5C),
scientists wouldn’t catch a chill and
the beetles wouldn’t grow to sexual
NEWS 09
maturity, so any that were in the
collection would inflict only minimal
damage before dying out. In
addition, the engineer also had to
maintain a moisture level of 45%
(+/-5%) within the archive.
“We could have maintained these
exacting conditions using all kinds
of technology,” says Nissen.
“However, we wanted to investigate
a relatively low-energy solution.” As
a result, the 300mm concrete walls
of the cocoon, and exposed
concrete ceilings, are used as a
stabilising thermal mass. The
cocoon is insulated just beneath its
outer surface, so the collection will
remain in a stable condition for
hours if the ventilation systems fail.
Temperature and humidity is
controlled by purpose-built air-
handling units, two per floor.
The archives take all their heat
and power from the central estate
boilers, CHP and absorption
chillers. In summer, waste heat
from the CHP dries the supply air
via a desiccant wheel before
lowering its temperature using the
absorption cooling. In winter,
adiabatic humidification raises the
moisture content of the supply to
the required level. The central
archive ventilation system delivers
air at a constant 17C/45% humidity
to all floors at a rate of about one
air change per hour, year round.
Stagnant areas are eliminated by
local air-handling units.
In the holding and preliminary
examination areas, the temperature
is maintained between that of the
archive interior and the 21C/50%
humidity of the laboratories. “We
have exploited the narrowing ends
of the cocoon to create an
acclimatisation area, where
specimens are kept while waiting ¢
ISSUE 10 / BSD NOVEMBER 2009
10 NEWS

¢ to be worked on or returned to
storage,” says Nissen. “This enables
the gradual moderation of moisture
content, so minimising any damage
through environmental fluctuation
that the delicate specimens might
experience as they move through
the building.”
The glazed atrium that surrounds
the cocoon is viewed as a transient
space. Fulcrum has allowed its
temperature to fluctuate with the
seasons. However, it is not
naturally ventilated. Air-handling
units pump in air – filtered to
remove pollution from vehicles and
the plane trees surrounding the
museum – at low level around the
perimeter of the space to
compensate for down-draughts.
“The environmental design is a
combination of green thinking and
pragmatism,” says Nissen. “We
aren’t afraid to use technology and
energy to achieve the most
effective and most efficient result.”

Photographs: Torben Eskerod

Architect: CF Møller Architects

Client: Natural History Museum
Main contractor: HBG
Project manager: Manly Development
Services
Structural engineer: Arup
Services engineer: Fulcrum
Consulting
Cost consultant: Turner & Townsend
Fire engineer: Buro Happold FEDRA
Acoustic consultant: Sandy Brown
Associates

BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10

14 NEWS ANALYSIS
DO GREEN
FUNDS
STACK UP?
Sustainable property
investment funds are
making big claims
but not everyone is
buying into the idea,
reports Mark Jansen.
BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10
T
his summer saw the launch of the
Sarasin sustainable real estate
fund, the latest of a small but
growing number of property
investment vehicles that are putting their
money solely into green buildings. The
amount of money the funds have raised
from pension funds, insurance companies
and wealthy individuals is small compared
with the vast sums invested in property
around the world, but still adds up to
hundreds of millions (see panel).
The managers of these funds say
occupiers are willing to pay higher rents for
energy-efficient buildings because they are
cheaper to run. They also claim businesses
and organisations with strong corporate
social responsibility policies are under
pressure from shareholders and staff to
occupy the greenest buildings, which makes
such property more desirable and easier to
let. They believe green buildings will hold
their value better than others that could
soon be rendered obsolete by legislation
such as the Carbon Reduction Commitment
and tougher Building Regulations.
Independent property valuers are not
convinced. John Symes-Thompson, senior
valuation director at CB Richard Ellis, says:
“There is no real proof in the UK market
that green buildings are worth more.” He
accepts, though, that this could change if
energy costs continue to rise and further
laws are introduced to cut emissions from
commercial buildings, which account for
18% of the UK total.
The London-based property fund
Climate Change Capital has raised £120m so
far and hopes to have £500m within six years.
Its strategy is to buy poor buildings in the

UK and refurbish them to high standards of
energy efficiency. It is seeking buildings
close to public transport, let to solid tenants
such as government departments or big
corporations, with low flood risk and a facade
with good thermal performance – “Typically,
that’s masonry or brick, not glass,” says Tim
Mockett, managing director of Climate
Change Capital’s property team.
Glass-covered developments such as
More London on London’s South Bank,
where Climate Change Capital has its UK
office, are not on the shopping list. The fund
will also assess a building’s orientation to
ensure minimal heat gain, and its cooling
system to see whether a low-energy or
mixed-mode version can be installed.
Early this year it spent about £26m on
its first property, 5 St Philips Place in
Birmingham, a six-storey office and retail
GREEN PROPERTY FUNDS
Name: iii investments Green
Fund location: Munich
Money to spend: seeking to raise
€400m (£350.68m)
in 2-3 years
Strategy: buy and develop office
properties in western Europe,
built to high BREEAM, LEED and
other environmental standards
Returns: not yet disclosed,
but Reinhard Mattern, the
managing director, says: “Green
buildings offer a sustainably
higher return rate and a higher
resale value”
Name: Climate Change Capital
Fund location: London
Money to spend: £120m currently
available, and hopes
to raise £500m
Strategy: buy poor-performing
buildings in the UK and make
them energy efficient
Returns: refurbished buildings
likely to be “worth up to 10%
more”, according to Tim Mockett,
fund manager
Image of Uptown, one of three
energy-efficient, mixed use
developments that Credit Suisse’s
green property fund is investing in.
building occupied by the Department for
Communities and Local Government,
Marks & Spencer, HSBC and Halifax. The
building scored a G for its display energy
certificate, the worst rating, despite winning
an “excellent” under the BREEAM system
when it was assessed in 2003.
The new landlord investigated how the
energy meters had been set up and found
that tenants were inadvertently paying for
roughly double the amount of electricity
used. “This is not an uncommon situation,”
says Mockett. “The vast majority of existing
buildings are poorly managed.” A £398,000
refund has been secured and the annual
electricity bill cut from £300,000 to £168,000,
raising the DEC rating from G to F.
The fund hopes to raise the DEC score
further to a C or B by investing about
£300,000 in air-conditioning, insulation,
NEWS ANALYSIS 15
Name: Credit Suisse Green
Fund location: Zurich
Money to spend: 300m Swiss
francs (£173.29m)
Strategy: develop new residential,
retail and office property in
Switzerland, built to fund’s own
environmental standards
Returns: “It is difficult to
quantify, but in the long run
green buildings should perform
better than the rest,” says Ulrich
Braun, head of real estate advice
at Credit Suisse
Name: Sarasin Sustainable
Fund location: London
Money to spend: €11.5m
(£10.08m) already raised, and
further €30m expected during
first year
Strategy: buy shares around the
world in property companies
rated as the most active on
CO2 reduction
Returns: outperformed Standard &
Poor’s global property index by 2%
in its first six weeks, to August 31
solar shading, lighting and controls. The
tenants have agreed to use the building
efficiently and to provide the landlord with
quarterly reports on their energy use. The
two sides are negotiating over who will pay
for the refurbishments. If the tenants agree
to contribute, they may receive a share of
the savings in exchange or be offered a
lease extension on favourable terms.
Mockett says it is difficult to say how
much the value of the building will rise as a
result of the changes, but when pressed
says: “Our feeling is that it will be worth up
to 10% more.” He emphasises that willing
tenants are needed for the refurbishment
strategy to work, but claims there is now no
shortage of these, especially in buildings let
to the public sector and big corporations.
In July the fund paid £23.9m for its
second building, a mixed-used property ¢
ISSUE 10 / BSD NOVEMBER 2009
16 NEWS ANALYSIS
5 St Philips Place in Birmingham
was Climate Change Capital’s
first acquisition and it has
already improved its energy
performance.
¢ at 3-5 Morrison Street, Edinburgh, and is
drawing up plans to reduce its energy use.
The strategy of the London-based
Sarasin sustainable property fund is to buy
shares in property companies it considers
to be the most progressive on CO2
reduction. Sarasin argues that this allows
investors to get their money out quickly, as
shares can be sold within hours while a
building sale can take months or years.
The fund has raised €11.5m (£10.08m)
since its launch in July and Jakes Ferguson,
the manager, says investors are ready to
commit another €30m before it is a year old.
Sarasin has devised a shortlist of 64 property
stocks around the world that it will consider
buying. British Land is a good example: its
new developments are designed to emit 25%
less carbon than is allowed under current
Building Regulations and it is making
serious efforts to improve the energy
efficiency of its existing properties, Ferguson
says. “There are other companies that are
doing very, very little,” he adds.
Hong Kong is an important market for
property funds, but Sarasin found only one
developer that it considered green enough.
The fund invests more heavily than is usual
in the UK, Dutch, Australian and even US
property markets because those countries
are more active on CO2 reduction.
Ferguson quotes research from Jones
Lang LaSalle to argue that occupiers will
pay higher rents for green buildings. He
claims that “a two-tier market will develop –
BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10
you will end up with buildings that are
simply not fit for purpose”. He admits,
however, that the influence of green funds
may be limited: “It’s a niche area… our
clients will find this product attractive but it
may never be mainstream.”
Other attempts to launch green
property funds in the UK were wrecked by
the credit crunch. In Switzerland values fell
only slightly, however, and in April Credit
Suisse was able to raise 300m Swiss francs
(£173.29m) for its first green property fund.
This is investing in three low-carbon,
energy-efficient office, retail and residential
schemes in Switzerland.
“In the long run, green buildings pay,”
says Ulrich Braun, a real estate specialist at
Credit Suisse. “We have a lot of experience
of investing in green buildings and have
found that there is relatively little extra to
pay if you incorporate these features into
the design from the beginning. We and at
least 200 investors believe that this makes
sense in the long run.”
A green building fund was launched in
July by Munich-based iii investments, the
property arm of HypoVereinsbank. It hopes
to raise €400m within three years.
The calibre of new entrants is not
enough to change Symes-Thompson’s mind
about the market. Commenting on Climate
Change Capital’s strategy of buying
buildings for refurbishment, he says: “I
would be fairly confident they will get some
improved [investment] performances, but
that’s very different to saying values will
improve for all green buildings.”
There are many factors that make a
property desirable, especially location and
rent. Energy is often only a tiny part of the
cost of occupying a building, ranging from
1% to 3.5% for office occupiers, according to
property consultant Actium Consult.
In addition, Symes-Thompson is wary
of making a direct link between energy
saving and higher rents: “There’s not
necessarily a direct relationship. The
energy savings are part of a tenant’s
operating costs and may go to a different
account, while rent negotiations are
conducted in the normal way.”
Investment Property Databank started
a sustainability index in June to measure
returns on green property. Symes-
Thompson says it may be several years
before enough data has been gathered to
provide reliable answers. He believes the
biggest property fund managers, such as
Prudential, Aviva and Legal & General, are
more likely to ditch their worst power-
guzzling properties and improve the energy
efficiency of the rest, rather than launch
specialist green funds of their own.
“This agenda will affect all properties,
it won’t create a separate market,” he says,
adding: “Some will lead and others will be
slow to adapt, and that is where you may
get some differences.”
For more on green developments, www. bsdlive.co.uk

OPINION
SENSE AND
SUSTAINABILTY
The business case for investing in
sustainable buildings is winning over
a growing number of investment
institutions, says Julie Hirigoyen.
O
ur design community can make
all the technical advances it
wants, but if investors don’t
value sustainability, we won’t
see the radical change we need.
Major institutions in the UK were slow
to appreciate the relevance of sustainability
to real estate assets, despite many of them
applying socially responsible investment
principles to their equity portfolios.
Ten years ago, pension funds and life
insurance companies were not particularly
engaged in the environment. As a result,
early movers like Hermes and Prudential
Property Investment Managers enjoyed a
significant profile for their pioneering
approaches to responsible property
investment, involving the integration of
environmental and social practices into
mainstream property processes.
But now, sensitised by the most severe
recession in memory, institutions are more
reluctant than ever to expose themselves to
risks they cannot quantify or predict. They
need tools that enable them to understand
the sustainability risks of their real estate
investments, and to future-proof their assets
to ensure they retain value in a low carbon
economy. Understanding this helps all parts
of the supply chain deliver a more
sustainable and, crucially, valuable building.
When investors consider new
properties for their portfolios, initial risk
assessments look at issues that might
increase the insurance liability or tax
burden of the building in five or 10 years,
such as the flood risk for the building and
its surrounding infrastructure. Assuming
the building passes these tests, the next
steps would form part of an extended due
diligence process, and look in more detail at
the building fabric and services.
Those investors concerned about the
obsolescence of poorly performing
buildings in a low carbon economy are
prepared to go one step further. They
commission a detailed energy assessment
of the building to understand its carbon
abatement potential, and to plot the capital
expenditure required to bring it within a
specified performance threshold. Their
reason for undertaking such a survey pre-
acquisition is, of course, to reflect forecast
capital expenditure in price negotiations.
In the management of their portfolios,
institutions wish to understand the risk
profile of their different funds. Our
sustainability risk mapping work with
investors suggests many of the risks which
might become acute in the next decade are
not necessarily being captured by typical
fund management practices. For instance, in
2008, more than 40% of the 1500 properties
analysed were found to be at risk of
contagion flooding; only 10% had smart or
“
Investors who believe
the market will favour
sustainable buildings
claim the cost of
improvements now will be
outweighed by the cost of
retaining poor performers
”
COMMENT 19
This regular column is provided by
the UK Green Building Council and
its members
zoned lighting systems; only 5% had any
water conservation devices installed; and
15% had no natural ventilation whatsoever.
Institutions that profile such risks on a
regular basis are using the results to feed
into asset allocation decisions and
transactions strategy, and are integrating
the lessons into future asset management
plans and fund management principles.
They are also looking to engage more
proactively with their tenants through
occupational strategies and green leases.
In a credit- and a resource-constrained
economy, it might be sensible to assume
that investors will, in coming years, give
more attention to refurbishment rather than
new development. Indeed, we are being
asked to apply complex cost-benefit
analysis tools to evaluate the net present
value of sustainability improvements that
might be made to Class A buildings in
investor portfolios. Investors who believe a
two-tier market will rapidly emerge in
favour of those buildings that demonstrate
a strong sustainability performance claim
that the cost of improvements today will be
outweighed by the cost of retaining under-
performing assets in the future.
Such trends are a strong indication
that institutions equate responsible
property investment with financial returns.
Whether through reducing void rates,
minimising running costs, or improving
capital values, the perception of a rapidly
growing number of institutions is that
sustainable practices will ultimately
improve the long-term value of their funds.
And that’s good news for everyone who
believes sustainable building should be the
norm, not the exception.
Julie Hirigoyen is joint managing director
of Upstream Sustainability Services,
part of Jones Lang LaSalle
For more opinions, www.bsdlive.co.uk
ISSUE 10 / BSD NOVEMBER 2009
20 PRACTICE
PROFESSIONAL
ON YER
BIKES
A firm is rewarding –
and penalising – staff
for their out-of-hours
carbon footprints.
Krystal Sim reports.
BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10
S
taff at WSP are earning cash
bonuses thanks to the
consultancy’s Personal Carbon
Tracking Scheme (PACT), a
voluntary initiative which sets them a
target for carbon emissions in their
personal lives.
Each worker has an annual carbon
emission allowance of 5.5 tonnes for
carbon-related activities, such as heating,
lighting and public transport. Those who
emit less receive 5p for each kilogram
under the 5.5 tonnes; those who are over
are fined 5p per kilogram. The reward and
penalty are capped at £100.
The financial numbers may not be
huge but the scheme is a valuable way of
making people aware of their own carbon
emissions. More may be forced to follow
the example of WSP, according to the
Institute for Public Policy Research, which
says about 40% of UK emissions result
from the behaviour of individuals.
The think tank has examined the case
for and against personal carbon trading as
a means to tackle climate change, and
suggests it could become a serious option
if existing policies fail to make a dent in
emissions or the impacts of climate
change worsen.
About 80 people in WSP’s UK-based
environmental team have signed up to
initiative, which started in 2007. The carrot
and stick approach seems to be working as
the overall carbon footprint of participants
in the first year fell by 10%.
David Symons, the director who
suggested the idea, puts the attraction of
PACT down to a mixture of incentive,
environmentalism and competition.
He says: “The scheme has its roots in
carbon rationing action groups. Local

activists set these up in their communities
as a way to reduce their individual and
collective carbon footprints. As a company,
we live and breathe this kind of thing, so
we thought it was a great idea to pick up in
our business.”
Symons wanted a sustainable strategy
that went beyond common-sense
measures. “Switching off monitors and
lights just isn’t stimulating,” he says. “Our
staff are pretty green in their thinking so
we had to encourage something that went
beyond the basics.”
Each quarter, participants work out
how much energy they have used, how
many miles they have driven and what
long-haul flights they have taken.
Commuting is included, as it is deemed
personal travel, while business travel such
as flights to overseas projects is excluded.
“We tally up the spreadsheets at the
end of the year, when we have our day of
reckoning,” says Symons. “There’s a degree
of peer competition but the main draw for
the scheme depends on the person. Some
are taking part because they are
environmentally minded. Others may look
at it purely from an incentive approach.
Either way, the scheme is worthwhile.”
Senior or junior, staff face equal
censure if they go over their allowance.
Stuart McLachlan, managing director of
the environment and energy team, fell foul
of the scheme because of long-haul
holiday flights and was fined. He now
cycles the 12 miles to work to cut his
personal emissions further.
WSP is looking at extending PACT to
its overseas offices, though it will have to
be revised to fit the country. Symons says:
“We have staff in Sweden who could easily
make the targets set in the UK. On the flip
side, if we were to give US staff the same
allowance as the UK they’d be in carbon
debt straight away because of the lifestyle
there, how the houses are made and the
climate.
“What we’re trying to do is provide an
incentive and engage people; to have
enough of a carrot that suggests they can
make savings and be rewarded for them.
The targets we’ve set are reasonable and
attainable.”
With staff reducing their emissions
by 10% in the first year alone, will the
carbon allowance decrease? Symons says:
“We do anticipate that the targets will be
tightened, and are kicking around ideas at
the moment, but we can’t say for definite.
“What the scheme proves, in broader
sustainability and employee engagement
terms, is that if you’re imaginative, you
get good staff buy-in and you have a lot of
fun doing it.”
For more on carbon footprints, www.bsdlive.co.uk
LEGAL
GREEN CLAUSES COULD BE
AN EXPENSIVE COMMITMENT
Developers are increasingly writing green standards into
their building contracts, says Jake Davies. Consultants
should be wary of what they are letting themselves in for.
F
or many businesses, it is their
premises that have the largest
impact on their carbon footprint
and bring them into contact with
environmental legislation. Because of
this, developers are increasingly
requiring consultants and contractors to
ensure new buildings comply not only
with statutory requirements but with
voluntary standards.
Historically there may have been a
perception that such clauses were simply
aspirational “greenwashing”, but failure
to meet objective standards can give rise
to damages for breach of contract.
In the English commercial property
market, the green standard most
commonly referred to is that established
by the Building Research Establishment
Environmental Assessment Methodology
(BREEAM).
If a party wishes those standards to
be met, an obligation to do so must be
created contractually. Where a BREEAM
clause differs from other aspirational
building standards (such as “a high-
quality office development suitable for
use by financial institutions”) is that the
BRE will assess whether the BREEAM
standard – “passed”, “good”, “very good”
or “excellent” – has been met.
Damages should easily be
ascertainable for breach of contract
where market value is attached to
environmental standards and where costs
relating to energy usage increasingly will
be easy to demonstrate.
Another head of damages could be
diminished rental value for a building
that has not hit specified environmental
standards. State subsidies and grants
applying to zero carbon buildings could
be lost and reputational damage could
give rise to further loss.
As a hypothetical example, Ethical
Bank wants a new headquarters. An
agreement for a lease entered into by the
bank might require the building to meet
the BREEAM “excellent” standard. Any
developer agreeing to provide such a
building would have to ensure that the
requirements for that standard be met,
PRACTICE 21
otherwise an obligation to take the lease
(and pay rent) may never arise.
If the rent on Ethical Bank’s
premises was £500,00 a year for 20 years,
a loss of £10 million could be suffered if
the BREEAM standard were not achieved
and the bank’s obligation to take the
lease fell away.
A developer should ensure that
obligations owed to end users of
buildings in property documents are
backed up in building contracts and/or
consultant’s appointments. Any
reasonably foreseeable losses suffered by
the developer should then be recoverable
from the professional team and/or
contractor that failed to meet the design
or build standards required by the user.
NEGOTIATING A BREEAM CLAUSE
Where enhanced environmental
standards are written into appointments
and/or contracts, the parties should be
aware of the need to meet those
standards.
If assessment of satisfaction of
those standards is in the hands of a third
party, such as a BREEAM assessor,
consultants and/or contractors should
caveat any such obligation with a
“reasonable endeavours” qualification.
For example: “The [consultant/building
contractor] shall use reasonable
endeavours to see that on completion the
works achieve a BREEAM rating of
[insert desired rating] with regards to
[insert relevant BREEAM scheme] and
shall liaise with the employer’s BREEAM
assessor to facilitate its assessment of the
works.”
However, a clause that creates an
absolute obligation to obtain a certain
standard as assessed by a third-party
assessor should be resisted if possible:
however clear the BREEAM schemes are
and however consistent the assessment
process, there is always a risk that the
employer’s assessor will not accept that
the relevant standard has been met.
Jake Davies is a partner at Forsters LLP. For more on
legal matters, go to www.bsdlive.co.uk
ISSUE 10 / BSD NOVEMBER 2009
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 THE JOY
OF SIX

A bid produced in just

six months has led to
FEATURES

Australia’s first six-star

convention centre.
By Kristina Smith.

W
hen the brief for a huge
public-private partnership
project asks for a four-star
green rating, it might seem
crazy to go to the trouble and expense of
putting in a six-star bid, but that was the
tactic of one of the competing teams for
Melbourne Convention Centre.
It was a commercial decision, rather than
a green crusade, explains Matthew Jessup,
environmental group leader at WSP
Lincolne Scott. The client, the Victoria state
government, had funded the development
of a tool to measure the environmental
performance of convention centres – and
the tool went up to six stars.
“We thought it was a pretty good clue,”
says Jessup. “If you go to the trouble of
creating a tool that goes up to six stars, are
you really going to be happy with four? For
us it became a nice way to have a clearly ¢

BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10

 BUILDING ANALYSIS 25

ISSUE 10 / BSD NOVEMBER 2009

26 BUILDING ANALYSIS
¢ measurable point of difference. A lot of
times when you design a building, you can
make all these nice claims but you are only
ever measured on cost or someone’s
subjective assessment of the aesthetics. This
gave an objective measurement tool to
demonstrate what we wanted to do.”
The client liked the strategy and gave
the job to the Plenary Group consortium,
which included WSP Lincolne Scott. The
Aus$500m Melbourne Convention Centre,
which opened in June, became the first
such building to achieve a six-star Green
Star rating, which signifies “world
leadership” in sustainable design and
construction (see panel opposite).
The triangular scheme, linked to an older
exhibition centre by a glass walkway, has a
huge glass-fronted foyer which can
accommodate 8400 people, a 5000-seat
plenary hall which can be divided into three
BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10
“
In a short period, there’s
no time for options
analysis. You look at each
space and decide what the
right solution is for it.
Then there’s a process of
testing to prove your
instinct is correct
self-contained theatres, and 32 meeting
rooms. Public-private partnerships (PPPs)
all too often result in bland designs, so
Melbourne Convention Centre is truly
something to behold, especially given that
the bid team had just six months to deliver
a design good enough to put in a
guaranteed price.
Jessup says innovation was encouraged
by the three-point model used by the state
government to assess public-private bids:
strong and clear minimum and aspirational
targets for sustainability; good reward for
whole life considerations; and a budget that
challenges the requirements of the project.
The architects, Woods Bagot and NH
Architecture, building services engineer
WSP Lincolne Scott and its specialist
services arm Advanced Environmental, and
the builder Multiplex had worked together
before thanks to Melbourne’s relatively
small construction community. “That’s one
of the things the PPP model requires,” says
Jessup. “It’s pretty important that a large
component of the team is consistent from
project to project.”
The architects were based permanently
in a project office for the bid period, with
the engineers calling in when needed. The
first steps in such a project, says Jessup, are
based on gut feeling: “In a short period,
there’s no time for extensive options
analysis. You look at each space and decide
what the solution is. Then there’s a process
of testing to prove your instinct is correct.”
Then the knack is to tie down 80% of the
design, picking the big-hit items that will
influence the cost and the end outcome, he
explains. Once you’ve won the job, you have
two to three years to sort out the details.
Perhaps the biggest of those big
decisions on this building was its layout,
 BUILDING ANALYSIS 27

GREEN STAR
Green Star is BREEAM’s Australian
cousin, developed by the Green
Building Council of Australia to
assess the sustainability of a
building’s design and construction.
It has versions to cover a wide
range of building types.
In 2005, the Victoria state
government’s major projects
department funded the development
of a tool to assess convention
centres. It was piloted on the
Melbourne scheme and resulted in
the building gaining the highest – six
star – rating.
Points are awarded in nine
categories: management, indoor
environment quality, energy,
transport, water, materials, land
use and ecology, emissions and
innovation. Scores are then
weighted depending on the state
and territory the project is in to
reflect the diverse environmental
concerns in Australia.

êêêêêê
4 Star Green Star rating
(score 45-59)
Signifies best practice in -
environmentally sustainable design
and construction

êêêêêê
5 Star Green Star rating
(score 60-74)
Signifies “Australian excellence”
in environmentally sustainable
design and construction

êêêêêê
6 Star Green Star rating
(score 75-100)
Signifies “world leadership” in
environmentally sustainable design
and construction

www.gbca.org.au
Circulation is wrapped
around the outside of the
building (above right).
The 5000-seat main hall
(centre left) is cooled by
displacement ventilation.
which turns conventional exhibition centre
design on its head. Rather than burying the
circulation space deep within, it is wrapped
around the outside. This means the public
spaces are daylit and the front-of-house can
be shut while events are being set up.
“You find that you are using more energy
during set-up and pack-down than during
the conference,” says Jessup. “You can
achieve more energy-saving during the out-
of-event period than during the events.”
Another big decision involved the foyer,
which has an 18m-high glass facade to
maximise daylight and a combination of
chilled-slab and displacement air-
conditioning. “That had not been done in a
significant way in Australia,” says Jessup.
“It’s a technically risky thing to do.” Change
to a more conventional solution later would
have had serious ramifications because of
the extra space required for air ducts.
The final important decision was the
design of the 5000-seat main hall, which is
cooled by displacement ventilation. Air is
delivered from the plant room via plenums
behind each row of seats. Body heat causes
the air to rise and it is then drawn out via
ducts. Since only the lower third of the
space is cooled, this saved on insulation,
which had an impact on structural design.
There were several challenges in firming
up the hall design, such as providing a
space that could be reconfigured into three
smaller rooms and allowing for the seats to
be hydraulically retracted to provide a flat
floor. The seating manufacturers had to
come up with a bespoke design.
“It’s an interesting problem to solve when
you are supplying air through the seats and
half of the time they are not there,” says
Jessup. “That’s one of the things we knew
we could not solve during the bid phase, ¢

ISSUE 10 / BSD NOVEMBER 2009

28 BUILDING ANALYSIS

INGREDIENTS OF A SIX-STAR HALL

1 EXPANSIVE GLASS FACADE
provides views and allows high
degree of diffused natural light with
spectrally selective glass.
2 SOLAR HOT WATER PANELS
provide all public amenity hot water
requirements.
3 IMPROVED INDOOR AIR
QUALITY resulting from large
volumes of fresh air.
4 SLAB HEATED AND COOLED to
provide energy-efficient thermal
comfort for occupants and reduce
air-conditioning requirements.
5 DISPLACEMENT VENTILATION
system uses low-level air delivery
and a high-level air exhaust to
provide high indoor air quality with
low energy consumption.
6 CARPETS, PAINTS, ADHESIVES
and sealants are low in volatile
organic compounds to enhance air
quality.
7 BLACKWATER TREATMENT
facility allows wastewater and
rainwater to be reused in the
building, and reduces the flow to the
sewer.

AHU plant

Rainwater and stormwater collection

2

1
6

4 5

Stormwater
retention Roof drainage discharges to Rainwater pumpline to blackwater All wastewater collection Landscape/irrigation reuse
stormwater retention system treatment facility

¢ but I wasn’t concerned about that. We
spent more time getting the foyer right.”
No less important in the pursuit of the
highest green credentials are the solar
heating, which provides 40% of the hot water,
and blackwater recycling, which reduces
water consumption by up to 50%.
Blackwater recycling – bringing sewage
water up to potable standard – is a fast-
developing technology in Australia. From
design to installation, the cost of the
centre’s system went from Aus$1m to
Aus$600,000. It wasn’t a tough decision to
specify it, says Jessup, as the infrastructure
for greywater recycling uses virtually the
same equipment and testing regime, but
instead of dual pipework you have one set.
This offsets the cost premium in plant.
Grade-A recycled water is used for toilet-
flushing, the cooling towers and irrigation.
One of the biggest problems was the
commitment to use only timber accredited
by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).
This, combined with the “buy Victorian”
policy on state projects, created a headache
when it became apparent that no timber
supplier in Victoria could meet the brief.
The industry rose to the challenge and
now there are four suppliers in Victoria that
can prove FSC chain of custody. “We failed
because it became too difficult to get 100%.
I would say we got 90%. But in terms of
transforming the industry, it was a fantastic
achievement,” says Jessup.
Asked if there were any disappointments,
he mentions two. First, he would have liked
natural lighting in the main hall, but the
cost of achieving a meaningful level in a
space of that volume while maintaining
acoustic, brown and blackout requirements
would not justify the result.
He was keen on natural ventilation in the
foyer but the design team rejected this
because the chilled and heated slab with
displacement provided the energy savings
for less cost. Jessup also concedes that
natural ventilation would have been an
inelegant solution once insect, bird and
security actuators had been installed.
“I think we did a pretty good job during
the early design stages,” he concludes. Now
there is the matter of whether the building
lives up to its billing. Four months into a 12-
month period of fine-tuning, it’s too early to
judge, but he says: “Every time I’ve been
inside, I’ve been incredibly impressed.”
Jessup looks forward to the Parliament of
the World’s Religions convention next
month; not for spiritual reasons, but
because the centre will be packed. “It will be
exciting to see how it performs.”
For more Green Star projects, www.bsdlive.co.uk

BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10

30 PEOPLE
LUCY PEDLER, FOUNDER
GREEN REGISTER
The summit will be a
waste of time and public
money unless all developed and
developing nations agree on a
fixed, achievable and binding set of
CO2 reduction targets (relative to
each country’s current emissions).
Nothing less than radical change is
required and I am not of the
opinion that this is likely to happen.
Leaders talk about this being the
last chance to avert global climate
change but it is already happening,
and for Copenhagen to be a success
we need strong, forward-thinking
leadership, not “What can we do
until my political term runs out?”
TANYA ROSS, GROUP DIRECTOR
BURO HAPPOLD
It’s a brave politician
who campaigns on the
need for long-term environmental
investment in the face of rising
unemployment, but Copenhagen
needs to get some measurable
commitments on the table that
governments can be held
accountable for. Someone likened
the statements being made last
week by Ma Ying-jeou, president of
Taiwan, and Barack Obama as being
like two people standing on a
bridge, wondering who’s going to
jump first. Or maybe they’ll jump
together? It’s time to get that
commitment, to make that step.
BSD INTERVIEW
COPENHAGEN
VOX POP
What decisions must world leaders make
at the United Nations climate change
conference in Copenhagen next month?
Krystal Sim quizzed professionals,
politicans and campaigners.
BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10
PROFESSOR JAMES
WOUDHUYSEN
Stay away from
interfering with heating
and lighting preferences, travel
habits, reproductive practices and
diet. Stop finger-wagging about
carbon footprint; abandon attempts
to audit it. Quit the guilt industry,
end obsessive carbon dogma.
Stop hectoring China and India.
Refuse to chase the chimera of
microgeneration. Prioritise nuclear
fusion, high-tech coal, second- and
third-generation biofuels, high-
altitude kites on hawsers, solar for
the Sahara, air capture of CO2,
geoengineering. The summit will fry
the air, no more than that.
JULES SAUNDERSON,
SUSTAINABLE DESIGN ENGINEER
FULCRUM CONSULTING
The conference should
focus as much on facilitating
solutions as setting targets, which
can make one focus on the details
of the target itself, rather than how
best to approach the task. This can
be seen with the zero carbon
targets in the UK: three years after
they were first announced, we’re
still arguing about the definition.
Co-ordinated international planning
and delivery of new low-carbon
infrastructure will require greater
levels of trust, and arguing over a
legally binding target may not be
conducive to this.
RYAN LAW,
MANAGING DIRECTOR
GEOTHERMAL ENGINEERING
I’m optimistic because
no one can afford to walk away
from the table any more. That’s not
to say that the process of
negotiation will be a smooth one;
there is considerable tension
between the developed and
developing nations, and a
justifiable anger from poorer
nations who feel that they cannot
reduce their emissions without help
from richer nations, who so far
have been less than forthcoming
with the promised aid. To solve this
antagonism we need a commitment
from rich nations to become
leading examples of renewable
energy production.
JEAN VENABLES, PRESIDENT,
INSTITUTION OF CIVIL
ENGINEERS
With the Kyoto protocol
deadline in 2012 bringing one era
of the climate change battle to an
end, there is a pressing need to
reset the agenda for the future. If
real change is to be achieved, an
international framework of targets
must be agreed to ensure that we
continue actively to address the
consequences of our changing
climate on societies. Any
infrastructure built today will have
impact on our emissions levels for
years to come, so it is essential this
is taken into account now.
SIMON HUGHES,
LIBERAL DEMOCRAT
SPOKESMAN ON ENERGY AND
CLIMATE
The developed world must accept
historic responsibility for the
climate crisis. That is the only way
to build trust with the developing
world. The developed world should
commit $160bn of funding every
year to support climate change
mitigation, adaptation and
technology transfer to the
developing world.
NELSON OGUNSHAKIN,
CHIEF EXECUTIVE
ASSOCIATION FOR
CONSULTANCY AND
ENGINEERING
Governments must agree to limit
the overall global temperature
increase to 2C and achieve an
overall, significant reduction in
carbon dioxide output, particularly
through the roll-out of low-carbon
energy and transport. There must
be absolute commitment to
technology and skills transfer to
less developed nations, as these
will suffer disproportionately. There
must be commitment to new
models of green economic
development. Above all, these
commitments must be achievable.
There must be a definite timetable
of meaningful actions from each
government, otherwise the
Copenhagen summit will be seen as
just another global PR opportunity.
 PEOPLE 31

PETER AINSWORTH, TORY MP WHO
INTRODUCED THE GREEN ENERGY BILL
The prospect of success at
Copenhagen improved
significantly with the election of
the Obama administration. This
was always going to be mainly
about a deal between America
and China, with the EU, Brazil
and India playing supporting
roles. The prospect of failure is
not worth thinking about.
DAVID CLARK, PARTNER
CUNDALL
As a starting point, governments
should agree to worldwide
benchmarks for energy per
person and energy per square
metre for all building types; a
standard method for calculating
energy to CO2 conversion factors
for electricity used in buildings; a
methodology for efficient
buildings; and revenue-neutral
tax mechanisms in each country
to reward good performance and
penalise poor performance.
RICARDO MOREIRA, DIRECTOR
XCO2 ENERGY
Governments from developed
countries, which created the
problem, need to face the
political risk and commit to bold,
comprehensive targets without
requiring the same from the
developing world. Emerging
economies have a big role to play
in reducing deforestation and
setting their own targets, with
strong international financial
backing. The technological
solutions are known and
abatement curves show many of
them are cost-effective; what we
need is political will and
leadership.
JOAN RUDDOCK,
MINISTER FOR CLIMATE CHANGE
WESTMINSTER
CAL BAILEY, MARKETING AND
SUSTAINABILITY DIRECTOR
NG BAILEY
There must be a global
solution to the various national
carbon standards in buildings in
order to create a single standard to
replace BREEAM/LEED/Green Star
and the other European methods. I
am hopeful that the summit will be
a success but the devil is in the
detail.
STEWART STEVENSON,
MINISTER FOR CLIMATE
CHANGE
SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT
The Scottish government has taken
the lead with the publication of the
Climate Change (Scotland) Act,
which will help us become a
leading nation in developing a
sustainable way of life, reducing
the impact its people have on the
local and global environment. The
move to a low carbon economy is a
major opportunity. The choices
made will be critical to shaping a
modern, successful and sustainable
Scotland and to maintaining a
quality of life which retains and
attracts talented people and
investment. It is imperative that
other developed nations follow this
lead while we also reach out to
those who need our help in tackling
the biggest threat facing the
modern world today.
JULIAN WEYER, PARTNER
CF MØLLER ARCHITECTS
Whether a specific
reduction target, or a
new methodology in assessments,
or any other agreement, what
would make the meeting successful
would be a framework that creates
a shift in feasibility for “green-
tech” in a wide sense – making it
more attractive, economical and
efficient to invest in and develop
the next generation of solutions in
architecture and technology. The
biggest potential for movement is
not just in appealing to the hearts,
but also to make it good business
to go green.
JIM FOOTER, CAMPAIGNER
GREENPEACE
World leaders must
agree to: help from rich
countries so the rainforests are
protected, because it’s a cheap way
to slash emissions; cash to help
developing world countries to
adapt, because otherwise they
won’t sign a deal; ambitious,
binding emissions targets for
developed countries like the UK,
and commitment from developing
countries that they will need to
reduce their emissions in the
future. We’re in this together, we
can beat it together.
CAROLINE LUCAS
GREEN PARTY LEADER
We need more than
polite talk and empty
promises. Climate change is a
global security issue, and
governments must put themselves
on something akin to a war footing
if they are to adequately respond to
the challenge. Instead of always
talking about the costs of changing
our behaviour, leaders urgently
need to talk about the benefits that
will flow from investing in
alternatives to polluting, finite
fossil fuels. It is essential to
highlight the great potential of the
Copenhagen summit to achieve
positive.
FARAH NAZ, BUILDING
ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER,
GIFFORD
Governments must
agree first, that the developed and
the developing world both have a
serious, pressing problem with
climate change. Second, they must
agree to finance and transfer low-
emission technologies to
developing countries, providing the
stimulus for economic growth
without making the causes of
climate change even worse. And
third, I would like all governments
to recognise the need for a new,
global economic model based on
decarbonised technologies and a
predictable allocation of capital to
microfinance small-scale
enterprises where appropriate.

We need an agreement that leads

the world to cut its emissions by
at least 50% by 2050 and,
crucially, to put in place the
measures needed to ensure
global emissions start to fall
within the next decade. This will
require all developed countries to
commit to firm emissions
reductions targets, and also
actions from rapidly developing
countries to limit their emissions
growth. But we’re also seeking a
deal that helps to deliver new
and additional sources of funding
for low-carbon development and
For more comments on the Copenhagen
adaptation in developing conference, and to have your say, go to
countries. www.bsdlive.co.uk/blog

ISSUE 10 / BSD NOVEMBER 2009

32 MASTERPLANNING
WIDEN YOUR
HORIZONS
A new tool that helps to assess
the mix of uses needed for truly
sustainable projects highlights
the importance of looking at the
big picture, reports Krystal Sim.
S
ustainable masterplanning will
help engineers and architects win
the battle for lower carbon
emissions, something tighter
Building Regulations alone cannot achieve.
That’s the belief of Hilson Moran’s director
of sustainability Matt Kitson.
He says the real issue for the built
environment sector is how we design cities
and transport and energy infrastructures.
“The strategy of putting the emphasis
on buildings is heading in the right
direction,” he says. “But if the government
takes those regulations too far it runs the
risk of alienating designers. They could
simply become too difficult, and individual
building design can only go so far.”
Rather than being simply a matter of
what you build, it’s where you build and
what you put around it that makes for a
sustainable city, Kitson explains. Where
BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10
SuBET was used to assess
the Sesto San Giovanni
industrial regeneration
area in Milan.
are the parks? Where can people practise
their religion or study? Are there jobs in the
local area? These questions are just as
important as district heating and cooling or
transport systems.
DESIGN FRAMEWORK
To help to put the pieces together, Hilson
Moran has developed a masterplanning
system called SuBET (Sustainable Built
Environment Tool), which provides a
design framework. It brings together
everyone involved in a project, from the
client and the quantity surveyor to the
architect and environmental consultant, to
consider 71 environmental, economic and
socio-cultural indicators.
Kitson says: “Everyone has been
focused on environmental stewardship
but we need to think more about economic
and social factors – job creation, public
spaces. That’s the thinking behind the
tool. It’s encouraging more of a mix of
uses in masterplans.
“We have to move away from those
masterplans in the Middle East, ones that
have 25 towers, all residential and nothing
else. That’s not sustainable.”
LESSONS FROM LONDON
Historic cities have a surprising amount to
teach us, Kitson says. “If you look at the
make-up of the masterplan of London, how
that’s built up over the years, it’s one of the
most sustainable cities in the world. It has
cultural and social hubs. There are green
spaces. Look at these on a sunny summer
day and you’ll see how important they are.
“Contrast this with somewhere such as
Mexico City, which has grown over the
years but seen things tagged on. There’s
very little public transport and the average
wait time in cars is two-and-a-half hours.
The people sit and eat fast-food in their
cars, and the city has the highest obesity in
the world. Consequently, it has the highest
diabetes levels in the world.
“That’s planning gone wrong, and why
masterplanning is so important. We don’t
want that problem replicated around the
world,” Kitson says.
A important part of creating a
sustainable masterplan is making the big-
picture decisions at the earliest stage of the
design process. SuBET sits the entire
project team down together, armed with
plot details and local information.
The tool breaks the masterplan into
three central areas – environment, economic
and socio-cultural – which are then divided
into subgroups such as land and ecology
(see diagram, facing page).
Ideal targets are set and detailed notes
are made. The notes are input into the
SuBET tool, which gives a graphical readout
of how sustainable the project is. This
framework can be adapted and revisited as
the masterplan is designed.
The initial, intense discussions will
determine which areas are given most
weight. Kitson is confident that the tool can
offer a “guiding hand” to all of the team,
reminding them of what is important at
each stage of the design.
WHAT’S IMPORTANT?
SuBET was used to assess the 1.5m m2
Sesto San Giovanni industrial regeneration
area in Milan. “The economic argument
was strong,” says Kitson, “but the
environmental expert pointed out the
respiratory problems in Milan because
of the pollution.
“The tool turns the process on its
head and asks what is the most important
thing for the area? Getting the team into
one room and spending a day or two going
 MASTERPLANNING 33

SUBET IN ACTION
Graphical summary of the
sustainability of a project and,
below, in Matt Kitson’s words,
what the debate on each topic
Land and ecology Proposed
might consider. development

Exemplar
Cost and economies Accessibility development

Cultural
and
perceptual Water

Functionality Energy

Air pollution Materials and waste

Land and ecology Accessibility Water Energy Materials and Air pollution Functionality Cultural and Cost and
Encouraging the Ensuring there are Minimising usage Using not only the waste Is this going to hit Creating perceptual economies
reuse of land, ways for people to and flood risk. built form but the Construction, the EU’s PM10 communities, Looking at access Mixed-use
including sites get around the Water is a bigger cluster of storage of levels? How to parks and green to public space, developments are
previously masterplan area issue in certain buildings to recyclable waste, minimise the use spaces. Where’s landscape design, probably the most
occupied by other without burning parts of the world minimise the and waste of certain CFCs the play area, or a public amenities. successful around
development or fossil fuels. This than others. It is energy footprint management and global museum to keep It could be that the world – they
with low can be achieved also necessary to of that during warming people you can’t touch tend to work, mix
ecological value. by promoting think about how masterplan. Also, construction and materials. Air- stimulated? historical of uses for people.
Avoiding impact public transport, to irrigate public looking at the operation. Existing conditioning buildings. Recognition that
on local wildlife encouraging spaces. consumption and materials in the systems in the you’ve considered
and minimising cycling, more fuel- efficiency of the area, recycling buildings. Make a the economics of
the long-term efficient transport buildings. things. More commitment at the local area. Can
impact of the systems, and environmentally the start of a job people get to
development on pedestrian friendly materials. – you could be work?
the biodiversity of networks. building where
the site and the there’s a huge
surrounding area. existing problem.

through the details like this is the best way masterplanning is coming, and are doing

to do it. It’s very area-specific. ”
While SuBET is only available at the
moment as a consultancy service from
Hilson Moran, Kitson is keen that it should
be a means to encourage debate.
“This isn’t ‘Hilson Moran will save
the world’,” he laughs. “We invested time
and resources into this tool not just
because the company needed it, but
because we feel the industry needs it.
Hopefully others will adopt this philosophy
or develop their own.
“It wouldn’t be a sustainable thing to
do, to develop a tool only to sell it on. An
important question for the industry is who
“
something on this. It will be a huge issue in
the next five or six years.”
Where does this shift in emphasis from
Everyone has been individual buildings to overarching
masterplans leave engineers and architects?
focused on environmental Should they worry about their jobs?
“It may be that you’ll see the
stewardship but we need emergence of a hybrid of disciplines – the
to think more about archiengineer,” Kitson says. “Whether that
will be an engineer working in an
economic and social architectural practice or vice-versa, I don’t
know. Architects have the skills but they
factors – job creation, need advice from engineers. Perhaps this
public spaces will mean changes in university courses,
too. A sustainable masterplan could even

”
will solve this problem? How are we going become the main driver behind anything
to cut the carbon habit? getting planning. What everyone needs to
“This is not a Hilson Moran issue, or realise is that change is coming.”
an engineering issue. Most of the
architectural practices know sustainable For more on masterplanning, www.bsdlive.co.uk

ISSUE 10 / BSD NOVEMBER 2009

34 EMISSIONS
COUNTDOWN TO
CRC DEADLINE
How well will the Carbon
Reduction Commitment work?
Some fear it lacks teeth, or will
reward latecomers to green
practices rather than early
adopters. Mark Jansen reports.
I
n six months’ time an estimated 5000
companies and organisations will
begin taking part in the largest
carbon trading scheme the UK
has seen. Participation in the Carbon
Reduction Commitment is compulsory for
those that spend more than £500,000 a
year on electricity. This includes large
businesses with multiple sites, retail
chains, commercial landlords, local
councils and NHS trusts.
The aim of the scheme is to drive
down energy use and help the government
to achieve an 80% reduction in carbon
emissions by 2050. It works like this: from
April, participating organisations will
begin collecting accurate data about their
annual energy consumption, combining the
totals from each site into a single kilowatt
hours figure. This will go into their annual
carbon footprint report, the first of which
BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10
must be submitted by July 2011 and again
every year thereafter.
In 2011 the participants must also
begin to buy allowances to emit carbon,
based on their annual emissions. The price
of the allowances is set at £12 per tonne for
the first three years of the scheme, and is
expected to rise sharply thereafter as the
government begins to reduce the number of
allowances issued. The rising cost is meant
to encourage participants to become
progressively more energy efficient.
As an added incentive, all 5000
participants will be ranked in a league
table according to how much energy they
save. Money collected from the sale of
permits will be redistributed among
the participants, with bonuses for the best
performers and penalties for the worst.
An estimated £1.4bn will be spent on
allowances in the first year; the best

performers will get their money back plus
10%, while the worst will lose a sum equal
to 10% of their initial payment. The
bonuses and penalties will be ramped up
so that by year five, the poorest performers
could lose half their money. Participants
will also have to consider the damage that
a low placing in the league table could do
to their reputation.
In the early stages of the scheme, an
organisation’s placing in the table will
depend on how much it is doing to
measure its energy use, rather than its
year-on-year reductions, which will take
time to establish. Points will be awarded
for organisations that follow a Carbon
Trust standard for data gathering and
adopt automatic meter reading. The
Department for Energy and Climate
Change finalised details of the scheme in
early October, following no fewer than
three rounds of consultation.
If it works as intended, the Carbon
“
Reduction Commitment should create a
huge demand for expertise in energy
saving. BSD spoke to commercial landlords,
national retailers and a county council
Landlords will find it about their preparations.
cheaper to write off
THE LANDLORD
money spent on buying Large commercial landlords will be part
of the Carbon Reduction Commitment
allowances than to incur because they often pay tenants’ power bills
the costs of trying to before collecting the money through the
service charge.
persuade tenants to But the British Property Federation
has protested that landlords will be unfairly
use less power penalised because they have no control over
their tenants’ energy consumption. “The
”
scheme has not been properly thought
through,” says Liz Peace, chief executive
of the federation.
Some believe the price of carbon has
been set so low for the first three years,
EMISSIONS 35
at £12 per tonne, that the scheme will be
ineffectual. Hermes, which manages £8bn of
commercial property on behalf of investors
including the British Telecom and Royal
Mail pension funds, believes landlords will
find it cheaper to write off the money spent
on buying the allowances than incur the
administrative and legal costs of trying to
persuade tenants to use less power, for
example by changing the terms of leases.
“If we cannot engage with our tenants,
we are not going to reduce carbon as much
as we might have done,” says Tatiana
Bosteels, head of responsible property
investment at Hermes.
Bosteels says landlords will have much
more incentive to take control of tenants’
emissions after April 2013, when she
expects the price of the carbon permits to
gradually rise to about £50 per tonne.
Hermes has asked the Department of
Energy and Climate Change to consider
payments to tenants that reduce their
energy consumption, using the existing
system of display energy certificates, which
gives occupiers a score for how well they
manage energy on their premises.
Until then, Bosteels says, Hermes will
adopt “low-cost options” such as reviews
of lighting efficiency and the operation of
air-conditioning and heating. It will also
engage in voluntary projects with tenants
to cut energy use. One example that has
already been completed is at Prospect
House in London WC1, where Hermes,
occupier NBC Universal and property
manager Jones Lang LaSalle jointly
achieved a 15% cut in carbon emissions.
However, Bosteels admits that
voluntary projects with tenants are only
likely at “less than 10%” of Hermes
properties. The next step will be to start
amending leases so that tenants are
required to contribute to the cost of ¢
ISSUE 10 / BSD NOVEMBER 2009
36 EMISSIONS
¢ making the buildings more efficient, but
this will take some time because landlords
are reluctant to introduce new charges in a
property market that has been greatly
weakened by recession.
“You need a lease clause that says we
will share the cost of meeting this new
regulation, but that is very complicated,”
says Bosteels.
RETAILERS
Andy Francis, energy manager at B&Q, says
many high street chains, such as
Sainsbury’s, John Lewis and his own, have
been working on low-carbon strategies for
several years, so the Carbon Reduction
Commitment will make little difference to
their activities.
B&Q is already aiming to cut carbon
emissions by 90% against 2006 levels by
2023, while John Lewis claims to have cut
energy use by 20% per sq ft since 2003.
Francis, who chairs the Retail Energy
Forum, a networking group, is worried that
the early savings made by companies such
as his own will not be recognised and the
bulk of the rewards will go to organisations
that have done little or nothing so far but
will make great strides once the scheme
kicks in by doing the easy things first.
“Potentially, it’s easier to move up the
league table if you haven’t taken significant
prior action,” he says.
B&Q has already begun to install more
efficient lighting in all stores, while the
introduction of skylights has cut the need
for artificial lighting at newer outlets. Its
New Malden branch uses a ground source
heat pump for its heating and has a 20kW
wind turbine on the roof [see BSD August
09]. It also has solar photovoltaic panels for
electricity generation and solar thermal
panels for hot water. In addition, B&Q is
working with the Carbon Trust to examine
the possibility of using biomass boilers for
heating. Two stores are involved in a
feasibility study.
Despite these efforts, Francis says,
B&Q and other chains with a similar green
attitude cannot be certain of a good
showing in the league table: “With 5000
participating organisations, a company’s
position in the league table will be influenced
more by the actions of the other 4999
companies than itself.”
THE PUBLIC SECTOR
The NHS, local councils and the
government’s own estate will all have
to take part in the Carbon Reduction
Commitment. Kent County Council
already has targets to cut carbon
emissions by 10% against 2004 levels
by 2010 and by 20% by 2015.
Six hundred schools account for 75% of
the council’s energy use. Andy Morgan, the
BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10
authority’s energy manager, says many
school buildings have been made more
efficient thanks to better lighting and
heating controls, but he admits these gains
are often cancelled out by the expansion of
school facilities and the increasing use of
IT. Morgan believes the council will
struggle to meet its 2010 target.
On the positive side, the Carbon
Reduction Commitment has done much to
raise awareness among councillors and
senior officers of the importance of energy
efficiency. “There’s been interest at a senior
level in our likely position in the league
table,” Morgan says.
Kent was one of 34 councils to take
part in a year-long test run organised by
the Local Government Information Unit.
While the resulting report does not
divulge individual performances, it
highlights the difficulties experienced by
many councils in gathering accurate
information about their energy use.
“
Disappointingly, it noted that total emissions
during the test period, from April 2008 to
March 2009, actually rose by 0.27%.
“There is a lot to be done before April
There is a lot to be done and a lot of local authorities haven’t really
woken up to it,” says Stephen Cirell, head of
before April and a lot of local government at the law firm Eversheds,
local authorities haven’t which provided sponsorship money for the
test run. “Some are doing quite well but
really woken up to it. there will be casualties, where they leave it
late and don’t have the necessary data.”
There will be casualties A spokeswoman for the NHS
where they don’t have the Sustainable Development Unit says about
180 NHS trusts will take part in the scheme.
necessary data “The NHS is gearing up quite well,” she
claims, and the unit has published several
”
case studies on its website to provide
encouragement to the rest.
The Carbon Reduction Commitment
could become a severe embarrassment for
the central government’s own estate. A
report by the Environmental Audit
Committee in August gave warning that
government departments were failing to
meet their carbon targets and could lose
money when the scheme goes live.
The committee said it was
“unconvinced” that the government would
be able to achieve its target of cutting
emissions by 12.5% by 2015. “In too many
areas, [the government] has made little or
no progress and in others it is backsliding,”
said Tim Yeo, the MP who chairs the
committee.
A spokesman for the Office of
Government Commerce says that a
cross-departmental working group had
since been established to advise
government departments on how to prepare
for the initiative.
Six months and counting . . .
More on the CRC at www.bsdlive.co.uk

WASTE
OPPORTUNITIES
Construction waste
is best tackled from
the earliest stage
of a project, not just
on site, according
to a new design
guide. BSD reports.
Above: reusing demolition material
in landscaping could save £89,000
on the Tate Modern extension.
D
esigners are being urged to do
more to minimise waste in the
construction industry and
recognise that the problem is
not just something to be dealt with on site.
Designing out waste: a design team guide
for buildings, from the Waste & Resources
Action Programme (WRAP), is intended to
help engineers and architects to tackle the
issue in the early stages of projects.
WRAP is a not-for-profit company, set
up in 2000 with government backing, that
works to prevent waste and promote
recycling and sustainable products.
Of the 170-plus signatories to WRAP’s
campaign to halve construction waste to
landfill, more than 70 are contractors. Bovis
Lend Lease and Wates are considering fines
for subcontractors that fail to support them
in meeting waste targets. Clients account
for nearly 50 signatories, from the retailer
WASTE PREVENTION 39
Asda to public-sector clients such as the
Scottish government.
Designers are under-represented –
a trend no doubt linked to the belief that
reducing waste is the responsibility of those
on site. While it is true that the waste
associated with building services and
mechanical engineers is less by tonne in
materials terms, this should not be an
excuse for M&E engineers to avoid playing
a part in tackling the problem.
Dave Marsh, project manager for
WRAP’s construction programme, says:
“We’re keen for design teams to embrace
the unique position of influence that they
have at the design stage, where the greatest
opportunities for designing out waste can
be found and the greatest benefits secured.
By working closely with architects, M&E
engineers can overcome some of the
obstacles that can lead to materials being
unnecessarily wasted on a project.
“For example, M&E works will often be
programmed for installation after walls
have been drylined, thereby creating
significant amounts of plasterboard waste.
Similarly, by carefully planning the location
and installation of services to ensure easy
maintenance or upgrade access, materials
wastage can be further minimised.”
The Designing out waste guide gives
advice on how to achieve materials resource
efficiency and quantify the financial and
environmental benefits. It also provides an
overview of the basic principles of reducing
waste through design.
The potential for financial and
environmental savings was demonstrated
on the £215m Tate Modern extension in
London, due to start on site next year.
WRAP worked with the architects, Herzog
& de Meuron, VOGT Landscape and the
project manager, Gardiner & Theobold, to
identify potential ways to cut waste.
It was calculated, for example, that
using a fair-faced finish rather than dry-
lining finish for the internal walls would
produce total project cost savings of just
under £50,000. Reusing demolition material
for landscaping, instead of disposing of it
and importing new material, would produce
project cost savings of £89,000. Reusing
demolition material would avoid 200 lorry
trips and divert 280 tonnes of waste from
landfill. This would cut the overall energy
consumption of the construction process
and reduce local impacts such as noise,
dust, and infrastructure wear and tear.
To download the design guide visit, wrap.org.uk
ISSUE 10 / BSD NOVEMBER 2009
 OTHING
Y N

W
RE ALL

E
IT’S

N BUT VISIBLY SECURE

The new generation of metal pressfittings

with press indicator and cap.
Thanks to its press indicator, the new Mapress fitting offers a higher level of
security. In addition to the contour seal ring in every fitting, it is now possible to
check for unpressed joints even before performing a pressure test. In addition, all
of the pressfitting ends come equipped with a cap, so the seal ring remains
protected right up to the time of installation, shielding it from contamination with
dirt and dust. That’s what we mean by Know-How Installed.
www.geberit.co.uk
42 TECHNICAL
GEO-ENGINEERING
CAN SLIME SAVE
THE WORLD?
The IMechE believes algae-covered
buildings could play a big role in
carbon capture. Are they serious?
Mark Jansen investigates.
N
otice anything unusual about
the skyscrapers in this picture?
The green lines that run from top
to bottom are not decorations.
They represent algae, growing inside clear
tubes that have been fixed onto the face
of the buildings as a means of absorbing
carbon from the atmosphere.
The idea has been put forward by the
Institution of Mechanical Engineers as
a possible solution to global warming.
TECHNICAL
Algae absorbs CO2 as it grows and could
be introduced on a large scale on both new
and existing buildings, the IMechE argues.
It believes the algae could be removed
from the tubes when mature and used as
fuel for combined heat and power systems,
or for pyrolysis, whereby fuel is burned in
the absence of oxygen to produce syngas
and biochar, which can be used as fertiliser.
Even more ambitiously, it claims the process
could be made carbon-negative by fitting
the power plants with carbon capture
systems so that the exhaust gases and CO2
which are released during combustion could
be fed directly to the next crop of algae.
Algae-covered buildings is one of three
ideas put forward in the IMechE report
Geo-engineering – Giving us time to act?,
published in August, which proposes
technology to remove CO2 from the
atmosphere or to reflect the sun’s radiation
away from the Earth. The other two ideas
explored in the report are building
mechanical “trees” to absorb CO2 and using
reflective materials on the roofs of
buildings, which could reduce the urban
heat island effect (see panel overleaf).
The IMechE argues that governments
must take geo-engineering seriously,
because efforts to cut global CO2 emissions
through international negotiations could
easily fail. Global carbon emissions are still
rising and there are fears that the
BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10
Copenhagen talks in December will not
produce the level of commitment that
scientists say is essential to avoid devastating
climate change. We may have to fall back
on machines that suck CO2 out of the air
and the IMechE has called for £10m-£20m
to be invested in further research.
Geo-engineering “could provide the
world with extra time to decarbonise the
world economy, a task which has yet to
begin in earnest,” says the report.
The Royal Society, the UK’s national
science academy, has also published a report
on geo-engineering, saying it could be our
last hope if CO2 emissions are not reduced.
But the society warns that while some ideas
are technically possible, “there are major
uncertainties regarding their costs,
effectiveness and environmental impacts”.
Tim Fox, the IMechE’s head of
environment and climate change and lead
author of its report, insists it contains
practical solutions. The report is based on a
competition in which the institution asked
members to come up with geo-engineering
approaches to climate change. The judges
chose the three they deemed most plausible.
“We were looking for ideas with real,
practical potential,” says Fox. The
government has yet to respond to the call
for money to be spent on further research,
but is willing to give the institution a
hearing. Fox was due to meet officials from
the Department for Energy and Climate
Change in late October.
The IMechE argues that harvested
algae has an energy content of between
18.5MJ and 35MJ per kilo, which compares
well with coal at 24MJ per kilo. It believes
algae could grow happily in saline or waste
water, so potable water supplies would be
unaffected. It acknowledges that the algae
plan is “very much at the conceptual stage”,
but says the first step must be more research.

It sees algae-covered buildings as part of a
100-year plan for action on climate change
which would include many measures, such as
making buildings more energy efficient and
electrification of transport.
Tom Bowman, a building services
engineer at Buro Happold who led the team
that came up with the algae idea, points to
experiments by the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology in which tubes of algae were
fed by exhaust gases from the campus power
plant. The algae grew rapidly, raising the
prospect that biofuel could be produced from
exhaust emissions.
A company called Greenfuel was set
up in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2001
to develop the technology and succeeded
in raising $70m, with further algae-growing
projects at Red Hawk Power Station in
Arizona and Hazelwood Power Station in
Victoria, Australia. Unfortunately Greenfuel
closed its doors in May this year after
running out of money and is hoping to sell
off its assets and intellectual property.
Others are less convinced by the algae
plan, including David MacKay, the
Cambridge physics professor who began as
chief scientific adviser to the Department
for Energy and Climate Change on 1
October (see interview, BSD August 09).
MacKay agrees that geo-engineering is
“a crucial topic”, but questions whether
algae that is fed on CO2 and then burnt,
with the exhaust being fed to the next crop
of algae, can really reduce the carbon total.
“If the CO2 is just going around and
around, it’s not actually reducing the CO2
in the atmosphere,” he says. “Plants are an
option [for removing carbon], but the
contribution, though it might be useful, will
be small.” MacKay has calculated that it
would take 7500m2 of forest per person to
43
absorb the average Briton’s carbon output
of 11 tonnes a year, which adds up to an area
twice the size of Britain. ‘If people believe
that a plant-based system is the answer, I’m
afraid they are deluded,’ he says bluntly.
Carbon capture, an essential part
of the algae plan, is also an unproven
technology. Tests are taking place at
Schwartze Pumpe coal power station in
Germany and with burning gas at Lacq
power plant in south-west France, while
the Chinese government is planning a
pilot project from 2011.
The IMechE firmly believes carbon
capture can work. Tim Fox says: “The
technology, from an engineering point of
view, is not difficult; we certainly see the
development of the filter system that would
be required for the algae-on-buildings
scenario as being relatively close.”
MacKay disagrees. He argues that ¢
ISSUE 10 / BSD NOVEMBER 2009
44 TECHNICAL

¢ capturing, compressing and burying CO2
has an inescapable energy cost of its own.
“I’d be amazed if the energy cost of carbon
capture is ever reduced below 0.55 kilowatt
hours per kilogramme,” he says in his book,
Sustainable energy – without the hot air. He
calculates that our electricity consumption
would double if Britain chose to neutralise
its carbon emissions this way.
Stuart Haszeldine, geology professor
at Edinburgh University and co-leader of
the academic UK Carbon Capture and
Storage Consortium, is more optimistic
about carbon capture, although he says
experiments need to be stepped up rapidly.
“At the moment the world is on track but
only just,” he says. “We need to scale up
from 30MW experiments to 300MW power
stations… you run into different problems
when you try to do them on a power-station
scale. The challenge is to get the
technology working 24 hours a day. As they
stand at the moment, the systems would
effectively double the price of electricity,
but if the improvements continue as
expected, it could amount to just an extra
£30 on a £500 energy bill.”
As for growing algae from exhaust
gases, Haszeldine says that day is a long
way off: “There are several experiments
going on, [but]... commercialising it is still
in the realms of speculation. In terms of
technology, it’s further behind carbon
capture and storage.”
Tim Jervis, former head of sustainability
at consulting engineers Pell Frischmann,
is now director of Verus Energy, a new
company which aims to supply property
developments with energy produced from
burning waste through pyrolysis. He
believes that growing algae is an inefficient
way to harvest the sun’s power. “Solar PV or
solar thermal panels would extract much
more energy per square metre [than algae],”
he says. “Although, on the positive side, it is
true that you could cover large areas with
algae relatively cheaply.”
No one could accuse the IMechE of
lacking imagination, and the more unusual
ideas in its geo-engineering report are
tempered with simpler ones such as using
reflective roofing material to deflect the
sun’s rays, which has already been adopted
in California and elsewhere (see panel). But
one would love to be a fly on the wall when
the institution presents its vision for algae-
covered buildings to the Department for
Energy and Climate Change.
For more on climate change, www.bsdlive.co.uk

TECHNOLOGY THAT’S
ALREADY WORKING
Roofs should be covered in reflective
materials to reduce the cooling load on
buildings and the urban heat island effect,
according to the Institution of Mechanical
Engineers’ report on geo-engineering.
Such materials have been part of
California’s building regulations since 2005:
new buildings must reflect at least 70% of
the sun’s radiation. New low-rise and
residential buildings, where the white
material might be considered an eyesore,
may use roofing that reflects 40% of solar
radiation in colours similar to ordinary tiles.
Anna Speed, an engineer at Jaguar
LandRover, led the team which proposed
the idea as part of the IMechE’s
competition to find solutions to global
warming. She says the cost of the
reflective material in the US ranges from
only 75¢/ft2 for acrylic paint to $3/ft2 for
more advanced polymers such as thermo-
plastic poly olefin (TPO) and ethelyne
propylene diene monomer (EPDM). It is
claimed reflective roofing could cut the
energy used for cooling by up to 60%.
“The built environment should reflect
the sun’s heat, otherwise you are making
the task of controlling temperatures inside
the building more difficult,” argues Speed.
“Ideally, you would have a perfectly
insulated building with as much
reflectiveness as possible.”

BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10

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46 TECHNICAL

INSULATION
WARM WELCOME
IN THE ISLES
The chill winds that blast the
seas north of Scotland make its
islands an excellent test bed for
a new system of dynamic
insulation. By Mark Jansen.
BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10

W “
here better to put a new
insulation product to the test
than the wind-lashed Orkney
Islands? Energyflo, a low-
carbon, low-energy system of dynamic
insulation devised by the Environmental
Building Partnership, has been incorporated
into a development of 32 homes on Orkney.
This is nearing completion, and 20 more
homes have already been commissioned.
Heading even farther north to the Shetland
Islands, the system has been installed in a
bird observatory on Fair Isle (above).
Put simply, dynamic insulation aims to
trap the warmth that escapes through the
walls and roof of a building and return it
inside. The idea is far from new, but the
Environmental Building Partnership (EBP)
claims to have perfected the process with
the Energyflo cell, made from expanded and
moulded polystyrene.
TECHNICAL 47
DAVE WHEELER PHOTOGRAPHY (2)
The cells are sandwiched inside the
walls and/or roof of a building. The interior
is slightly depressurised, using an
extractor fan, flue or similar outlet, which
Early tests have shown causes the air outside to be drawn through
the walls and into the building.
that homes insulated As the air passes through the
with Energyflo will insulation layer, it picks up the heat that
was on its way out and returns it to the
see savings of 13-14% inside of the building, reducing the need for
on the annual cost of space heating. EBP says the product can be
used in reverse for interior cooling and a
space heating, the trial of this is taking place in Abu Dhabi.
Early tests have shown savings of
company claims 13%-14% on the annual cost of space heating
in homes insulated with Energyflo,
”
according to Andrew Peacock, director of
the company which is based in Alloa,
Clackmannanshire.
He declines to reveal how much it
costs, saying that Energyflo is still a ¢
ISSUE 10 / BSD NOVEMBER 2009
48 TECHNICAL
STATIC
INSULATION
ENVELOPE
FABRIC HEAT LOSS
VENTILATION LOAD
OUTSIDE INSIDE
¢ prototype and negotiations for
commercial production are ongoing.
“It will be at the higher end of the cost
of conventional insulation,” he says.
Peacock claims that 144mm of
Energyflo insulation will have the same
effect as 350mm of mineral wool insulation,
achieving a U-value of 0.05. He argues that
this will allow builders to use thinner walls,
giving them more interior space to sell and
saving on materials.
“We may effectively reduce the capital
cost of the building by more than the cost
of the product,” he claims. EBP also claims
that Energyflo can improve indoor air
quality by trapping pollutant particles in
the outside air and preventing them from
entering the building.
UNIVERSITY ROOTS
EBP is a spin-out from Aberdeen University,
where Peacock worked on dynamic
insulation with Mohammed Imbabi, the
company’s chairman. It was established in
2004 and received a cash injection from
Sigma Capital a year ago, which enabled
a business development team to be
recruited.
The two bosses haven’t altogether
given up their day jobs: Imbabi is a part-
time lecturer in engineering at Aberdeen
University and Peacock is a part-time
researcher into low-carbon buildings at
Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh.
Energyflo is to be installed in the
roofing of 42 homes in Carlisle, constructed
by Northern Developments, which will be
built to level four of the Code for
Sustainable Homes.
The product can also be used in
commercial property and is being used by
Nord Architecture in new roofing as part of
a refurbishment of two five-storey office
buildings in Glasgow.
BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10
DYNAMIC
INSULATION
ENVELOPE
FABRIC HEAT LOSS
HEAT RECOVERED TO AIR
VENTILATION LOAD
OUTSIDE INSIDE
EBP is working on 14 other retrofit
projects, from Cumbernauld New Town
in Scotland to a Victorian terrace in
London, following its success in the
Retrofit for the Future competition
organised by the Technology Strategy
Board, the government advisory body
established in 2007.
Peacock says that when take-up
increases, EBP plans to use an extra air
cavity within walls, located just behind the
plasterboard within a building, to provide
the depressurising effect that draws air in
from outside. This will mean that windows
can be opened without affecting the
performance of the product.
At present the system relies on the
depressurising the whole interior of a
building, which means that if a window is
open, the fan will suck air in through it
rather than through the insulation,
although Peacock argues that this is only
likely to occur on warm days. Small “feet”
moulded onto the Energyflo cells can be
used to ensure the cavity is built to the
correct width.
Energyflo is undergoing assessment
at the National Physical Laboratory and
afterwards EBP will approach the Building
Research Establishment to get the product’s
details added as an option the SAP software
used to calculate compliance with Building
Regulations. This would give a further
boost to sales.
“We are at a point where we can start
running hard at the marketplace. It’s just
starting to tip,” says Peacock. “Everyone
knows that the zero-carbon targets for new
buildings are coming. There’s a realisation
that traditional methods will no longer
satisfy requirements and there’s a hunger
for new technologies.”
For more on insulation, www.bsdlive.co.uk
FABRIC KEEPING WARM
COOLTH ON ORKNEY
ENVELOPE Andrew H Wilson, an Orkney-
based building company,
believes the Energyflo system
may be just what is needed for
local developments.
“There’s a big wind-chill up
here, and fuel poverty is also
quite bad, so we’re trying to
FABRIC COOLTH LOSS build the most energy-efficient
homes possible,” says Terry
COOLTH RECOVERED TO AIR
VENTILATION LOAD
O’Hara, a director. The product
is being used in a development
of 32 homes on Orkney, for the
local housing association, and a
new bird observatory on Fair
Isle (below).
The Energyflo cells have been
incorporated into wall panels
OUTSIDE INSIDE
manufactured off-site, although
they can also be used in other
forms of construction.
Prefabrication allows Andrew H
Wilson to put up a wind- and
waterproof house in a single
day, O’Hara says. The
observatory was assembled from
several readymade pods which
were transported from Orkney
by sea. A barge from Sweden
was commissioned to carry the
whole building across in a single
trip, but a heavy swell forced
the captain to turn back, so the
pods were taken over
individually in several trips.
O’Hara endorses the
manufacturer’s claims that
Energyflo allows the builder to
use thinner walls than other
insulation material.
“It’s fantastic. We can carry
on using thin-wall technologies
to comply with tougher
regulations [on U-values]. Most
people are having to go for a
thick-wall construction to get
enough insulation in.”
Heat pumps will be used to
provide space and water heating
in the homes while also drawing
air through the walls.
Like EBP’s Andrew Peacock,
O’Hara is coy about the cost of
the Energyflo system, but says
his company managed to stay
within a tight budget for the
social housing project.
50 TECHNICAL

PRODUCTS
WATER
& WATER
HEATING
Heating, cooling, greywater
recycling and disinfection –
BSD rounds up the latest
product offerings.

TES t
Thermal Engineering Systems (TES)
has launched a new version of its
Soleco open-loop heat pump, which
it says will ensure an even faster
payback compared with closed-loop
options. The upgraded pump offers
independent control and monitoring
of twin compressors for better
efficiency and extended operating
life. Each time the heat pump is
switched on, it selects the
compressor with the fewest “run
hours” to start. The second
compressor is brought into
operation only if needed. The pump
uses two independent heat
exchangers that provide both space
heating and hot water up to 65C,
and does not require supplementary
heating elements.

SAINT-GOBAIN PAM u
Saint-Gobain PAM says its Ensign
Eezi-fit cast iron pipework system
is the quietest waste water product
on the market. The claim follows
tests on various pipework materials
by an independent laboratory using
the test standard BS EN14366:2004.
The manufacturer says when the
push-fit product was fitted with
ductile iron fixing brackets
incorporating an acoustic damper, it
was quieter than other systems on
the market. At a flow rate of 4l/s
the Eezi-fit cast iron system
recorded sound levels 15-17dB(A)
lower than steel; 20dB(A) lower
than PVC/HDPE; 9dB(A) lower than
acoustic plastic systems; and 10-
12dB(A) lower than acoustic HDPE
systems. Saint-Gobain says will
save on acoustic insulation.

BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10


CME t
The Ecoplay micro greywater
management system from CME
Sanitary Systems is said to reduce
water consumption by as much as
a third.
It is based on the simple idea of
recycling bath and shower water to
flush the toilet. CME says that one
Ecoplay system can provide water
for two WCs.
Water from the bath and/or
shower is collected in a tank. A
skimmer removes light surface
materials while heavier particles sink
and are flushed away with the waste.
The remaining “clean” water is
drawn from the middle of the tank
and transferred to a 100-litre storage
tank, where it can be used to flush
the toilet. A full tank provides about
20 toilet flushes.
TECHNICAL 51
DIMPLEX t
Dimplex says its new range of
high-efficiency air source heat
pumps is suitable for heating and
hot water in commercial and
residential schemes. There are five
outputs, from 9-40kW, all with
CoPs comparable with ground
source units. The largest, the LA 40
TU, offers a flow temperature up to
58C, although best performance is
achieved at lower flow
temperatures. The LA 35 TUR+ is a
35kW reversible air source heat
pump. In cooling mode it extracts
heat from the internal environment
which can be used for domestic hot
water or heating a swimming pool,
for example.
GRUNDFOS t
Grundfos claims its Oxiperm Pro
chlorine dioxide production system
is the perfect solution for
disinfecting drinking or process
water. It also destroys biofilm, a
slimy layer which forms inside
water pipes or heat exchangers
where microorganisms settle. The
units come in two sizes which
produce 30g or 60g of chlorine
dioxide per hour and are able to
treat up to 75m³ or 150m³ water
per hour respectively with a dosing
rate of 0.4g/m³. The chlorine
dioxide can be added in two ways:
proportional to the water flow or
dependent on the measured
residual.
The system operates a patented buildings and also in existing
purging process to keep the water premises where a major bathroom
fresh, even when the building is refurbishment is being undertaken.
unoccupied. CME claims it is able to CME believes that with an
do this because the process expected lifespan of at least 20
recognises “old” water. years, a typical greywater recycling
If the toilets are not flushed system can pay for itself in as little as
within 24 hours, it automatically six years, depending on the
releases the stored water to waste geographic location of the building
before importing sufficient fresh and the prices charged by the utility
water to flush. company.
CME says the system was
designed to be easy to install and
to require little maintenance.
Fitting such a greywater
management system can enable a
new building to achieve level 3 to 4
of the Code for Sustainable Homes
without the need for further water-
saving features.
The systems can be used in new
ISSUE 10 / BSD NOVEMBER 2009
52 BSD4JOBS.COM

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 BSD4JOBS.COM 53

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Bringing the same great functionality as all UBM’s 4jobs sites, you will be able to take advantage of:
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9 Add your profile and CV so recruiters can search for you
9 Register for up to 5 job alerts
Stay in touch with the best industry jobs, register online now.

To advertise your vacancy with bsd4jobs.com please telephone 020 7560 4249 ISSUE 10 / BSD NOVEMBER 2009
BACK PAGE
YOUR DIGITAL WORLD
It’s no surprise to find that the omniscient
iPhone is Scott Nursten’s top gadget, but he
also reveals a love of Italian furniture. He is
hungry to know more about management
and marketing, but has no appetite for spam.
SCOTT NURSTEN
SYSTEMS INTEGRATION
DIRECTOR, NG BAILEY
Favourite website?
That’s a tricky one – I use all sorts of sites
for my work and personal life. Probably
wired.co.uk or arstechnica.com. Both allow
me to keep up with all things digital.
Favourite gadget?
My iPhone, without question.
Most useful website for work?
bnet.co.uk has very cool management
strategy, industry and personal development
articles and advice, which can help to
change my perspective on a daily basis.
Last track you downloaded?
Warrior’s Dance by The Prodigy.
Subject of the last email you received?
Market open report.
Social networking or face-to-face?
I use social networking for mass updates.
It’s always face-to-face for business or
anything more personal than a general
update.
BSD NOVEMBER 2009 / ISSUE 10
Favourite blogger?
I have two: Michael Hyatt for inspirational
leadership and Seth Godin for interesting
marketing ideas and market research.
Best link you’ve been sent?
11forgottenlaws.com – Bob Proctor’s view
that the universal law of attraction is only
one of 11 such laws. This site offers a
deeper understanding of all of the
universal laws.
What was the last thing you bought
online?
A handmade Italian sideboard from
gomodern.co.uk.
Funniest piece of spam?
Spam isn’t funny. I hate receiving spam
and always delete any straight away,
without opening it.
BSDLIVE.CO.UK
A recent news item on bsdlive
led to the following exchange,
which brightened the BSD office
by conjuring up images of
Nottingham as the land of
eternal daylight.
Reader David Glew wrote: “I
would be delighted to hear how
a 2kW PV system can produce
17,000kWh of electricity per year.
I did not realise that Nottingham
was a PV mecca and has 24
hours a day sunlight? Please let
me know I am wrong and that I
am missing something, or that
there is a typo in the article; is it
12 lots of 2kWp systems?”
The editor replied: “The article
reads 1700kWh, not 17,000kWh.”
DG: “I knew I should have
gone to Specsavers!”
BLOGGERS UNITE
Your contributions are what
makes the BSD blog. If there’s
an issue you feel passionate
about, feel free to contact us at
bsdeditorial@ubm.com.
TWEET LOUDER
Join the ever-expanding BSD
Twitter following at twitter.com/
bsdlive. If you’re blocked at
work, you can still see the latest
Tweets on sustainability issues
via the Twitter hashtag feed at
www.bsdlive.co.uk.
JOIN OUR WIKI
Upload details of your projects
at www.bsdlive.co.uk/wiki. You
will be able to add items as the
project progresses.
 Conference speakers include:

3-4 NOVEMBER 2009

INDIGO2 LONDON
Simon Brooks, David Campbell Mark Clare John Denham MP
vice president, president and chief chief executive, Secretary of State
European Investment executive officer of Barratt for Communities and
Bank AEG Europe Local Government

INVESTMENT, ACTION, DELIVERY

Lord Falconer of Stewart Jackson MP, Sir Bob Kerslake Dan Labbad
Thoroton, chair, chief executive, Homes chief executive,
Communities and and Communities Lend Lease Europe
London Partnership Local Government
The forum presents the ideal chance to discover the

hosted study tours and site visits

Ken Livingstone, Steve Norris, Nick Shattock, Paul Weston,
deputy chief executive, senior vice president,
London Quintain
boiling+chilled
The Zip HydroTap delivers boiling and chilled filtered
drinking water instantly.
So convenient. There’s no more water to boil and no

filtered water
more bottled water to buy, transport or store.
Zip HydroTap is safer than a kettle. The tap stays cool
to the touch, has a safety lock and can be easily

instantly
installed on a free-standing font (shown) or at a sink.
To find out more about the exciting Zip HydroTap please
call 0845 602 4533 or visit www.zipheaters.co.uk