low carbon design and accounting skills | archial sustainable futures
TRANSCRIPT
Buildings WorkshopTuesday 17th May 2011
Part of Ingenium Archial Limited, and Ingenium International Company
Low Carbon Design and Accounting Skills
1. Discuss how to enable more robust, transparent and accurate carbon accounting in the built environment
2. Discuss advantages and disadvantages of current models / approaches
3. Discuss how to build capacity and skills in carbon and sustainability management amongst built environment professionals
4. Discuss any other pertinent issues / problems brought by participants
5. Agree how the outcomes from these will be taken forward over the coming year
Initial Goals for this Workshop
Image - CCG
Image - RMJM
• Carbon is effectively becoming a currency
• We now need to budget, design, build, operate, and report in GBP and Tonnes CO2e
• Eventually CO2e will replace conventional currencies world wide
• Public and private sector organisations are producing increasingly well considered Carbon Management Plans
• There is a lack of skills and vertical integration within many organisations however, down through programs and projects
• Methods are now available for low carbon design and accounting at program and project level
• But there is a lack of integrated working and of individual skills and understanding across project delivery teams
Low carbon design and accounting - the issues
• Carbon Trust consultant and BREEAM assessor
• Designed over 70 projects, in excess of £660m total value
• Wrote Carbon Management brief for 2014 Commonwealth Games Athlete's Village
• Advisor to Scottish Government - with involvements in SCAG and ICARB
• Conducting government funded academic applied research into sustainability and climate change
• Providing low carbon design advice to architect colleagues and to public and private sector clients throughout the UK
• Helped shape Scottish Government’s contribution to the EU Economic Recovery Plan to 2020
John Easton - Carbon Management Background
• The time is short and the need for action urgent
• Re-skilling and mobilisation is required similar in scale to adopting a wartime footing
Need for Urgent Action
The Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009 commits Scotland to achieving:
• 42% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, and
• 80% reduction target for 2050
The Act also requires that Scottish Ministers set annual targets, in secondary legislation, for Scottish emissions from 2010 to 2050.
Carbon Management - Strategic Targets
Annual targets 2011 to 2022
2011 -0.5 %
2012 -0.3 %
2013 -9.9 %
2014 -2.1 %
2015 -2.2 %
2016 -2.2 %
2017 -2.2 %
2018 -2.2 %
2019 -2.3 %
2020 -3.0 %
2021 -3.0 %
2022 -3.0 %
Scottish Public Sector Portfolio Spend £m
SpendMtCO2e
Administration £244 79.8
Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service £114 37.4
Education and Life Long Learning £2,778 902.5
Finance and Sustainable Growth £4,939 1,747.9
Health and Wellbeing £1,1438 3,495.8
Justice £1,115 347.3
Local Government £11,580 4,270.5
Office of the First Minister £269 75.6
Rural Affairs and Development £587 560.5
Scottish Parliament and Audit Scotland £87 27.6
Total £33,151 11,544.9
Carbon Assessment of the 2010/11 Draft Budget
Scottish Public Sector Portfolio Spend £m
SpendMtCO2e
Rate £/tCO2e
Administration £244 79.8 £3,058
Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service £114 37.4 £3,048
Education and Life Long Learning £2,778 902.5 £3,078
Finance and Sustainable Growth £4,939 1,747.9 £2,826
Health and Wellbeing £1,1438 3,495.8 £3,272
Justice £1,115 347.3 £3,210
Local Government £11,580 4,270.5 £2,711
Office of the First Minister £269 75.6 £3,558
Rural Affairs and Development £587 560.5 £1,047
Scottish Parliament and Audit Scotland £87 27.6 £3,152
Total £33,151 11,544.9 £2,871
Carbon Assessment of the 2010/11 Draft Budget
• Essential skill sets are poorly defined
• Critical skills gaps exist with many experienced practitioners
• Lack of integrated design team working
• Persistence of the “design silos” mentality
• The priorities - motivate, design, construct, measure, feedback, motivate, improve…
• The ability to “make a case” with a client is arguably more important than technical competence…
• …and technical competence is crucial
Under-skilled Construction and Property Sector
2011
1949
• Carbon counting is process driven and skills based
• The majority of construction professionals do not know how to count carbon or understand why it is important
• There is no point in developing robust counting processes if they are not understood and/or the data produced is of poor quality
• Most of our new graduates will take 10 years to get to positions of influence where their higher skills can be applied more widely
• 2020 is only 9 years away…
• It is the 40-60 age band of construction professionals who manage building design, construction, and operation
• We need to retrain and re-skill them now
It’s not just new graduates…
• All of the construction professions have mandatory CPD requirements, but none prescribe a curriculum
• Say 1/3 of CPD was set to a mandatory low energy design and carbon counting curriculum
• For architects 10hrs would produce 300,000 sector training hours per year, continued say over three years
• Establish settled carbon counting methods
• Design CPD curricula around each of the construction professions
• Train the trainers and cascade the training at regional level
• Perhaps confer a form of recognised accreditation on professionals attaining prescribed levels of competence?
It’s not just new graduates…
One tonne of carbon dioxide :
• 505 m3 at room temperature (gas), or • 0.625 m3 as a solid
• A Route Master bus contains 540m3
1tCO2 is produced by burning ~385 kilograms of black thermal coal (1 tonne of coal =~2.6 tonnes of carbon)
1kW 1 bar electric heater for 1 hour = 1kWhr
Electricity emissions factor = 0.544KgCO2e/kWh
1 tCO2e = 11 continuous weeks of use
Developing the vocabulary - what is a tonne of CO2?
Carbon Emissions Factors
Conversion to CO2e (gross Calorific Value basis) Kg CO2e per kWh
Grid electricity 0.544
Industrial coal 0.313
Gas oil 0.277
Fuel oil 0.266
Diesel 0.253
Burning oil 0.247
Petrol 0.243
LPG 0.214
Natural gas 0.184
Wood pellets 0.026
It’s not just about Carbon Dioxide
Conversion to CO2e (gross Calorific Value basis)
CO2 x 1 HFC - 245ca x 560,000
Methane x 21,000 HFC - 32 x 650,000
Nitrous Oxide x 310,000 HFC - 41 x 150,000
HFC - 125 x 2,800,000 HFC - 43 - I0mee x 1,300,000
HFC - 134 x 1,000,000 Perfluorobutane x 7,000,000
HFC - 134a x 1,300,000 Perfluoromethane x 6,500,000
HFC - 143 x 300,000 Perfluoropropane x 7,000,000
HFC - 143a x 3,800,000 Perfluoropentane x 7,500,000
HFC - 152a x 140,000 Perfluorocyclobutane x 8,700,000
HFC - 227ea x 2,900,000 Perfluoroethane x 9,200,000
HFC - 23 x 11,700,000 Perfluorohexane x 7,400,000
HFC - 236fa x 6,300,000 SF6 x 23,900,000
Embodied Energy Budgeting - coming soon
Bill HaggartRambol
Embodied Energy Budgeting - coming soon
Bill HaggartRambol
Build New or Refurbish?
Key Features
Assumed Building Location Glasgow
Floor Area 12,236m2
Embodied Emissions Cost 9,345tCO2
Embodied Emissions Rate 764kgCO2/m2
Equivalent – Regulated 24 Years
Element kgCO2 kgCO2m2 Percentage
Substructures 1,358,685 111.04 14.5%
Frame 2,489,781 203.48 26.6%
Upper floors 1,292,122 105.6 13.8%
Roof 261,728 21.39 2.8%
Stairs 31,691 2.59 0.3%
External walls 205,438 16.79 2.2%
Windows and external doors 423,242 34.59 4.5%
Internal walls, partitions and doors 240,804 19.68 2.6%
Wall finishes 25,084 2.05 0.3%
Floor finishes 966,277 78.97 10.3%
Ceiling finishes 266,255 21.76 2.8%
Building services 1,793,186 146.55 19.2%
Total 9,354,294 764 100%
City Centre Office - Embodied CO2 Breakdown
data by Davis Langdon for SBSA
Element kgCO2 kgCO2m2 Percentage
Substructures 271,737 22.21 5.37%
Frame 497,956 40.70 9.84%
Upper floors 99,591 21.12 1.97%
Roof 261,728 21.39 5.17%
Stairs 6,338 0.52 0.12%
External walls 205,438 16.79 4.06%
Windows and external doors 423,242 34.59 8.37%
Internal walls, partitions and doors 240,804 19.68 4.76%
Wall finishes 25,084 2.05 0.49%
Floor finishes 966,277 78.97 19.10%
Ceiling finishes 266,255 21.76 5.26%
Building services 1,793,186 146.55 35.45%
Total 5,057,636 426 100%
City Centre Office - Refurbishment CO2 Breakdown
from data by Davis Langdon for SBSA
Carbon Assessment of the 2011/12 Draft Budget
Key Features
Assumed Building Location Glasgow
Floor Area 12,236m2
Embodied Emissions Cost 9,345tCO2
Embodied Emissions Rate 764kgCO2/m2
Equivalent – Regulated 24 Years
Equivalent Embodied Energy = for 1979 years
AD31 Easter 2010
• Architects have a vital role in providing leadership and must acquire skills and knowledge to deliver low carbon sustainable design
• We cannot rely solely on engineers or on technological solutions to solve our climate change problems
Fundamental to integrated team working is that architects and engineers should share the same language and understanding:
Carbon Management - towards a common language?
Q: What’s the carbon
emissions going to be then?
The Engineer The Architect
A: 21ઞ2 /ઑ2/ઝ ષઋષસ.
Finding a common language?
Engineer - Left
• Verbal, focusing on words, symbols, numbers
• Analytical, led by logic
• Process ideas sequentially, step by step
• Words used to remember things, remember names rather than faces
• Make logical deductions from information
• Work up to the whole step by step, focusing on details, information organized
• Highly organized
• Like making lists and planning
Architect - Right
• Visual, focusing on images, patterns • Intuitive, led by feelings
• Process ideas simultaneously
• 'Mind photos' used to remember things, writing things down or illustrating them helps you remember
• Make lateral connections from information
• See the whole first, then the details
• Organization ends to be lacking
• Free association
“Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” B Edwards
Finding a common language?
Engineer - Left
• Likely to follow rules without questioning them
• Good at keeping track of time
• Spelling and mathematical formula easily memorized
• Enjoy observing
• Plan ahead
• Likely read an instruction manual before trying
• Listen to what is being said
• Rarely use gestures when talking
• Likely to believe you're not creative, need to be willing to try and take risks to develop your potential
Architect - Right
• Like to know why you're doing something or why rules exist (reasons)
• No sense of time
• May have trouble with spelling and finding words to express yourself
• Enjoy touching and feeling actual objects (sensory input)
• Trouble prioritizing, so often late, impulsive
• Unlikely to read instruction manual before trying
• Listen to how something is being said
• Talk with your hands
• Likely to think you're naturally creative, but need to apply yourself to develop your potential
“Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” B Edwards
Who are the key participants in carbon accounting, and what skills and knowledge should they have?
• Project Owner• Project Sponsor• Chief Financial Officer• Estate / Building Manager• Energy Manager• Building Surveyor• Project Manager• Quantity Surveyor• Architect• Mechanical / Electrical Engineer• And...?
Professional Roles and Skill Levels
Are the same skills needed by practitioners at every level of seniority?
Senior• Aware of issues and objectives• Can make decisions about relevant
benchmarks and targets• Capable of strategic planning• Knows what skills are needed, who has them,
and when to apply them• Understands low carbon design progression
and detailed decision points and criteria• Understands adaptive comfort principles• Can use modelling lightly for initial option
appraisal• Capable of hole building dynamic simulation Junior
Required Level of Skills and Knowledge
What does a designer need to know for to enable the key early moves related to?
• Site selection• Building placement• Orientation and solar access• Plan aspect ratio• Room depth / height ratio• Glazing ratios and window placement• Optimal daylighting• Contained volume / envelope surface ratio• Over-shading and sky view• Natural ventilation options• Super insulation• Enhanced air-tightness• Available internal thermal mass• Insulant heat capacity (for extended decrement
delay and amplitude suppression)• Refurbishment options and priorities
Front-end Passive Design Skills
How do we build and implement a low carbon design and accounting skills program?
• Establish settled carbon counting methods• Define skill sets for each profession and for each
level within that profession• Design CPD curricula around each of the
construction professions• Train the trainers• Cascade the training at regional level• Perhaps confer Associate ICARB membership
on professionals attaining prescribed levels of competence?
Re-skilling – The Steps?
2008 Shortlisted entry for the Stirling Prize
The most prestigious prize in British Architecture
... and still we build glass boxes
How are we to develop and apply low carbon skills?
A parting note on common language...
