Others

isite- A communication blog for built environment news, views, comments and events in the North West. Edited and moderated by Martin Brown on behalf of the Lancashire Construction Best Practice Club.

blog4FM - the blog for FM - 4FM is the support, guidance, facilitation, training and assessment partner to the Centre for Facilities Management

Woken Up

I have today woken up this dormant blog - started in 2005 - last used in May 2005 - hardly sustainable!

I forgot how good the title of excelsus was and now plan to use it for ramblings and comments on anything sustainable and excellent.

just what is sustainable develpment?

The intro to a recent report from the Optimum Population Trust cuaght my eye and made me start thinking about just what is sustainable development - have we abused the term in construction, housing and the built environment - are we remaining true to the origianl concept and context. Perhaps we have redefined sd to suit our own needs - to be seen as sustainable - to get the doing something right feelgood factor - but perhaps, just perhaps working against the true goals and aims of sustainability in its ecological sense? I recall reading that Inuits consider sustainability to be effective only if it does not limit or harm seven future generations. We find it difficult to think beyond the next.

OPT: Countryside, devlopment, housing and diversity
The Degradation of the Planet

The report starts:

The concept of 'sustainable development' has moved far away from its original meaning, which implied long-term ecological sustainability. The term is now widely abused - for example to describe building development which does not in any sense meet the fundamental requirements of ecological sustainability. These are that such development does not (by increasing total urbanisation) contribute to destabilising climate change; that such development can be supported in a post-fossil fuel energy age; that such development does not continue the destruction of biodiversity; and in the case of the UK, that it does not continue to destroy our natural landscape and countryside.

more at http://www.optimumpopulation.org/opt.more.countryside.html

arch talk

AT-09: Sustainability with Dan Rappel

Green buildings and sustainable architecture: a conversation with Dan Rappel about increasing the level of sustainability that new buildings have, and beyond.

This recent Archtalk podcast contains an entertaining and informative discussion on sustainability within the built enviroment. Set within the context of th city of Chicago, the discussion covers the LEED programme (a similar programme to the UK BREAM scheme), the ambition of Chicago to be the first green city as an extension to green buildings and views of where beyond sustainability will take design and the built environment.

Available from http://www.schellarch.com/archtalk/ or downloadable through itunes.

Collaboration and CDM

(The following was written for a local newsletter)
Collaborative Working or working together will be reinforced with the proposed amendments within the forthcoming revision to the CDM )construction Design Management) regulations. Recognising what has been evident for some time, that safety performance and collaborative working are linked, as for example on BAA framework contracts, the new CDM regulations will increase emphasis on the importance of working together, more involvement of client and working with other nearby contracts.

Teamwork, whole-team, integration, cooperation, involvement, communication and consultation are typical of the collaborative words found throughout the draft and HSE material, along with a call for forms of contract that encourage teamwork.

Clients’ attitudes and approach (“cheapest and quickest”) was seen as the second biggest hindrance to progress – industry’s culture being the first.Consultative document para 22)

A draft of the forthcoming regulations and other documentation can be found at http://consultations.hse.gov.uk/consult.ti/conregs/listdocuments

Martin Brown, July 2005 martin.brown@fairsnape.net

the fourth R

It’s the new literacy – and it’s sorely neededfor the 21st century. Everyone should understand something about sustainability, insists Sara Parkin, programme director of Forum for the Future

awareness

“A musician needs to know enough about sustainability to check whether their violin has been made by forced child labour.”

To what degree do we need to be aware within the construction, fm and built environment...

purple sky

I read two accounts of self cleaning buildings recently – the development of smart building materials which clean themselves and fight smog (see below).

Brilliant – we can see and experience the effects of smog, so we deal with it. However consider - if such emissions were any colour other than clear – lets say purple - then we would have a distinctly purple coloured sky, rather than blue. And with a sky changing from blue to purple we would perhaps address the issues of carbon emissions in a more urgent manner.

From Sense Worldwide http://www.senseworldwide.net/index.php

July 22, 2005
New weapon in fight against smog
The fight against big-city smog has taken to new direction - scientists are developing "smart" building materials designed to clean the air with a little help from the elements. Using technology already available for self-cleaning windows and bathroom tiles, scientists hope to paint up cities with materials that dissolve and wash away pollutants when exposed to sun and rain. Swedish construction company, Skanska, is part of a $1.7 million Swedish-Finnish project to develop catalytic cement and concrete products coated with titanium dioxide, a compound often used in white paint and toothpaste that can become highly reactive when exposed to ultraviolet light. It works when UV rays hitting the titanium dioxide trigger a catalytic reaction that destroys the molecules of pollutants, including nitrogen oxides, which are emitted in the burning of fossil fuels and create smog when combined with volatile organic compounds. A range of self-cleaning products coated with titanium dioxide, including windows and ceramic tiles, are already on the market but the focus has mostly been on their practical value rather than the environmental impact.


And a very similar article on the RIBS site

http://www.rics.org/RICSWEB/getpage.aspx?p=4HLWC5FPCUm9yLky93__SA

climate change not important here - Strange message to built environment industries and home owners

Reported in today’s Guardian, the government is reportedly set to drop energy efficiency plans for older properties and delay introduction of regulations for new houses. This sends the wrong signal to an industry which is struggling to increase commitment and awareness of climate change issues. This comes surprisingly so soon after the governments sustainability strategy (which promised, or hinted at tougher targets for construction) and commitments at G8.

With the construction and related industries contributing 49% of total UK carbon emissions, the governments plan to reduce building, and particularly home, carbon footprints, it is sad, if this report is correct, that these plans are to be postponed or scrapped.

Without the support of the built environment industry the government cannot meet their overall climate change targets and ambitions. These measures would have stopped an estimated 500,000 tonnes of carbon entering the atmosphere by 2010.

So it seems the message is business as usual for the industry – with maintenance and running costs meeting the costs of greening buildings in the future. Meanwhile the environment will continue to deteriate.

Source – Guardian 18/07/05 or www.societyGuradian.co.uk/housing