Green Building in the UK - Essay Example

GREEN BUILDING IN UK: A MINI THESIS BY COLLEGE PRESENTED TO Green Building in UK Green or sustainable building refers to the construction of houses that ensure efficient use of energy and other resources, while at the same time ensuring the durability of typical conventional buildings. In other words, green buildings offer a healthy environment, are energy efficient and are affordable in the long term due to reduced energy costs associated with the buildings. The term green building was coined from the need to build energy efficient buildings. For many years, buildings have relied on grid power for lighting, air conditioning, cooling, heating among other utilities that require energy. Conventional use of energy requires exploitation of resources such as coal in the production of electricity, use of hydropower among other energy sources that have been in use for many years. Consequently, the use of the above sources of energy in buildings leads to massive environmental pollution and environmental degradation. For instance, the use of coal to produce electricity results in massive emission of carbon dioxide and environmental degradation in areas were cola has to be mined. As a result, the entire process leads to land and environmental degradation among other negative effects. To reduce environmental degradation and pollution from emissions, buildings are designed and constructed with features that minimise overreliance on conventional energy by relying more on natural lighting and energy conservation designs. There are various standards of grading buildings on a scale, which reflects the extent of energy efficiency in such buildings. In other words, the more efficient a building is, the more green such a building is, with several certification bodies coming up to rate and certify energy and resource efficient buildings. The research aims at investigating different requirements before certifying a building as green and the requirements that a building has to meet to warrant the green title. A few case studies of highly rated green buildings will be analysed with respect to the perspective of energy and resources efficiency, and how such buildings contribute to environmental sustainability. Moreover, the dissertation will seek to investigate different aspects that are used to rate these buildings and the different ratings used by the recognized certification bodies with close investigation of implications of building rating in addition to the current market response to green construction. Background of Green technologies Though the concept of green building dates back to the early 90s when groups advocating for sustainable construction initiated their campaigns, it was not until in 2008 when the government enacted the Climate Change Act of 2008 (Business Innovation and Skills BIS, 2011). The act set legally binding targets in which the government had to reduce emissions with expectations of reducing greenhouse gases by 80% between 1990 and 2050. The act also established the Committee on Climate Change (CCC), an independent body mandated to give advice to the government on carbon budgets and report to parliament on the progress of the country in reducing greenhouse emissions from industrial and domestic energy consumption. The act led to the formation of the Strategy for Sustainable Construction, a joint private and government initiative with the single aim of promoting leadership and behavioural change in addition to offering the related benefits to the construction industry and the economy at large. Since the passage of the act in 2008, public buildings were required to have Display Energy Certificates and other codes for special housing purposes. The Display Energy Certificates (DECs) show the actual energy use in every building, its operational rating in aiding the public to note the efficiency in use of energy in each public building (BIS, 2011). DECs indicated the efficiency of the building’s consumption of gas, electricity and other meters related to energy. Moreover, the European legislation, the Energy Performance of Building Directive (EPBD) that all members are supposed to adopt requires all public buildings to display DEC’s. One proposal under EPBD is that, all new buildings constructed after 2020 have to be nearly zero energy buildings, which implies such buildings will have to achieve high ratings in energy efficiency (BIS, 2011). Therefore, the UK Green Building Council (UK-GBC) works with all stakeholders and construction companies to create a clear roadmap to sustainability that has to be followed in the design and construction of buildings under the Green building concept. Topic Description By 2009, 43% of UK’s carbon emission was blamed on buildings through inefficient use of energy and poor waste management (BIS, 2011). Therefore, the main question is, is it possible and viable to reduce emissions in buildings to zero as required? As such, for the government to realize the goal of attaining zero carbon emission in buildings by 2020, there is a need to focus more on emissions from buildings in planning and improving the natural and built environment. Therefore, under the National Planning Policy Framework, all new homes will be required to have zero carbon by 2016 with the benchmark expected to include all buildings in UK by 2019 (BREEAM, 2014). The policy will be followed by ensuring buildings have energy performance certificates to declare the building s user and environmental friendly. Therefore, government policy requires that buildings under construction have to find ways for reducing overreliance of conventional energy and ensuring efficient use of energy in meeting the zero emissions level. The need to meet leads to the advocacy of green building concept in the UK. Therefore, there is a need to undertake a comprehensive study in UK to determine how building designers and contractors are adhering to the zero emission policy under the concept of green building. One aspect that makes the topic important is that organisations and the government have undertaken extensive research studies on ways to accomplish the zero emission benchmark in building and construction with industry players using varied approaches towards this objective. In other words, there are a number of ways through which companies have tried to achieve the zero emission target. Evaluating some of these methods through the use of several case studies and with a bias towards energy and resource efficiency in buildings will offer a critical insight into the sustainability of buildings towards the zero emission goals. The research aims ad investigating some of the leading approaches towards meeting this goal in the UK market, with specific examples of buildings and their efficiency levels. Building Certification Cognisant of the efforts of the government and the private sector towards ensuring zero emissions in buildings by the year 2019, there are several bodies mandated to certify buildings and ensure compliance with the green policy. One of these bodies is the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, LEED. LEED is a certification body based in U.S, which certifies and reviews buildings that apply leading approaches towards achieving energy efficiency and sustainability in construction on a voluntary basis (BREEAM, 2014). As such, other schemes sprouted aimed at certifying buildings that portray leadership in use of technologies and other approaches to ensure sustainability in buildings. Other bodies apart from LEED include the Green Star and the Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM), a certification body mainly used in the UK (Dixon, 2010). BREEAM was initiated by the UK Building Research Establishment (BRE), and adopted by the UK government as the body mandated to certify the best practices in building and construction towards meeting the zero emission targets. There is a need to understand the certification rating of BREEAM in the UK and explore different certified buildings that have received any one of the three certification ratings and their benchmarks in achieving these ratings. In other words, examining the rating of these buildings in relation to their efficiency in use of resources and energy would offer a better insight on the level and progress of sustainability of buildings in UK based on the most sustainable buildings, which other upcoming buildings have to emulate. Such evaluation will indicate the different approaches of attaining sustainability in buildings based on the most current research and industry practices. Understanding BREEAM Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) is the body mandated to offer green certification to buildings in UK. Evaluating how the organisation operates and the certification process is important in understanding green buildings in the UK. The body was first launched in 1990 to set the required standards for the best practices in advocating sustainable building (BREEAM, 2014). The aim of the organisation is to encourage designers and constructors to plan and design buildings with low carbon and minimise the energy that a building needs for efficient operations, before considering the need for energy efficiency and use of low carbon technologies (Green Building Council, 2007). In its role to certify buildings that have achieved sustainability, BREEAM undertakes rigorous assessments using recognised sets of performance standards and compares the performance of a building against established benchmarks. In other words, the standards are necessary for evaluating the specification, construction and design of a particular building in the certification process. The body evaluates buildings on sustainability based on energy use, the internal environment of the building, which has to meet healthy standards, the use of water, the produced waste, materials used in the construction process, ecology, pollution emitted from the building and the management process that monitors the performance of the building (Kibert, 2012). Therefore, the building certification process towards achieving a green building status is not only determined by considering emissions from buildings. On the contrary, the criteria is widened to include the materials used in the construction, the waste generated from a building and how the building is designed to deal with such waste, the element of health among inhabitants of the building. Finally, the certification process has also to consider the overall management process that the building owners incorporate in ensuring maintenance and regular inspection of the building to ensure all elements are within the required standards depending on the level of certification. Therefore, in understanding the concept of green building in UK, there is a need not only to look into the energy efficiency of the building, which has to be computed after constructing the building. The process has to start early in the design and planning process to include elements and processes that ensure sustainability in the building towards achieving high ratings as a green building. The research dissertation will delve deep into the materials used in several green buildings across the UK and how these materials have helped in achieving sustainability. Moreover, the research will address the different technologies currently in use by different contractors tin coming up with materials and waste treatment processes such as the recycling process to achieve sustainability in buildings. Addressing the different stages of construction is important in that the green certification process addresses the building as a system with various processes and elements. Therefore, there is a need to evaluate different approaches currently used by building designers, planners and contractors to come up with benchmark building technologies, which have helped some buildings to achieve high green rating over others. In other words, by comparing some of the approaches used by different buildings that have achieved different levels of green certification, the research will help in understanding how the various approaches differ. The analysis will also include the aspects of cost and innovation in the sustainability process and point out some of the best approaches towards sustainability. Moreover, the dissertation will examine the types of incentives that encourage constructors of new buildings to embrace green designs and the input of the government towards encouraging the trend of green building in UK. Such information will help in understanding the motivation and political good will in ensuring the benchmark of achieving zero emissions from all buildings by 2019 as a government policy. In achieving the above goals of certifying buildings depending on their sustainability, BREEAM uses an open and flexible inspection system, which is open for evaluation, easy to understand and backed by evidence-based science and research based on the best practices in the market (Kibert, 2012). Moreover, BREEAM details and applies sound technical benchmarks across organisations and grants rigours quality assurance certification to buildings. As such, the use of BREEAM is not limited to specific actors in the construction process but to all parties involved in designing, planning, constructing and managing buildings. For instance, the design team of any building has to use the standards set by BREEAM in incorporating elements that would improve the performance of a building at the design stage through rigorous application of existing knowledge and expertise on sustainability of the environment. Moreover, managers of buildings have to use BREEAM standards in reducing the running costs of a building, in regularly measuring and improving the performance of buildings as set out in BREEAM benchmarks and developing effective data records. Moreover, managers have to monitor and report the performance of a building in maintaining the green rating of the building. In other words, failing to monitor the standards set out under BREEAM certification would lead to the downgrading of a building to a lower level of sustainability, which makes the building to lose its status especially for highly rated buildings. Methodology The research will use a qualitative –descriptive method to investigate green buildings in UK. In other words, the research will involve the use of a number of buildings that have achieved green rating under BREEAM and critical evaluation of the aspects that make these buildings attain their respective green certification. As illustrated above, green certification procedure involves the consideration of the ecology of the building, the materials used, the occupational health, efficiency in use of energy among other standards of the building (BIS, 2008). Therefore, the methodology will involve critically examining the above factors in particular buildings across UK and the levels of certification based on the five level ratings. More emphasis will be paid to buildings with five or four stars of rating, an indication of the superior performance of such buildings in relation to the certification standards. However, of much importance in the evaluation of the buildings will be comparing the emission levels of such buildings and energy utilisation and efficiency, two aspects that are mainly used to indicate the efficiency of buildings. Emphasizing the use of the two aspects would be necessary to indicate the progress made by the few buildings on reducing emissions as per the governments policies to reduce emission of greenhouse gases. Some of the buildings that will be considered for evaluation include the Mayville Community Centre, The Ecology Centre, Drayton Park, Nash Terrace, Crossway Building-zero carbon house, and Greenwich Millennium Village among others. The methodology will also involve investigating the remarkable aspect that makes the building remarkable compared to others. In other words, the buildings to be used as case studies have to be analysed from the planning to completion stage with the aim of finding out the best practices in green building. Information about green buildings will be sought from a wide range of credible sources from government publications, articles, books and company publications. Below are some of the houses that might be investigated for their sustainability levels. Fig 1. Mayville Community Centre Source: www.bere.co.uk) Fig 2. Drayton Park (Source: en.wikipedia.org) Fig 3 Crossway Building-zero carbon house. (Source: www.digsdigs.com) As such, the dissertation will involve critical research to find out specific information about the building in questions, analysing the data about specific building and relating the information sought to the benchmarks set by BREEAM. Considering that only the most current sources will be used so as to include only current information about green buildings, digital libraries will offer the best platform to source research materials. Moreover, where possible, a visit to some of the buildings under study will be necessary to correct data about the various elements of the building and its performance as indicated in the DEC. After collecting the data, there will be a detailed analysis of the data. Analysing the observed and collected data while comparing it to the benchmark standards expected for green rating in each level will lead to making an informative conclusion and a hypothesis about green building in UK based on the available evidence from the best sustainable buildings. To a lesser extent the methodology will also involve comparing the best green buildings in UK to green certification under the U.S LEED system in examining how the two systems of rating compare for the same building. Using some examples for highly rated buildings under LEED or the green star rating and comparing the benchmarks of these buildings to UK green buildings will be important in identifying common trends in green buildings across the globe. In other words, the green building is a universal concept aimed at ensuring energy efficiency and reducing wastes of buildings. Moreover, there will be a need to illustrate some industry players and producing some of the best materials that facilitate buildings to attain the green status. The research will also highlight some of the best architects and contractors of the buildings that have managed new benchmarks in green rating and their efforts towards the buildings certification. As such, the methodology will involve a comprehensive approach study the sustainability concept of the building alongside the different players who have made a significant impact towards the buildings high rating. List of References BREEAM, 2014. Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method. Accessed April 26, 2014. Business Innovation Skills, 2011.Climate Change Mitigation. Accessed April 26, 2014 Dixon, W. 2010. Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). Accessed April 26, 2014 Green Building Council, 2007. Report on carbon reductions in new non-domestic buildings. London: UK Green Building Council Kibert, J. C. 2012. Sustainable Construction: Green Building Design and Delivery. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley & Sons. Read More

 

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