Greenbuild Expo

Posted on April 25th, 2011

Greenbuild Expo, a sustainable refurbishment and building event is scheduled to be held on 29 and 30 June 2011 at Manchester Central. This expo is termed as “an essential and informative event for the construction industry covering everything from training opportunities and renewable technologies to sustainable materials and legislation updates.”

These are the highlights of the expo

• Ignition11
• Retrofit for Buildings
• Information hub about availability of training courses
• Code Clinic on surface water run-off

Here’s the link for you to register for the expo

Tags: Greenbuild Expo, Manchester Central, Renewable Technologies, sustainable homes, Sustainable Materials
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Towards a Meaningful Sustainability Policy

Posted on March 29th, 2011

In the UK, legislation on sustainable housing has been quite ambitious. But in practice, it appears impossible to implement them meaningfully.

What is apparent is that both industry as well as Government are yet to understand fully the meaning of sustainable housing. Does continuous legislation mean progress? Chairman of the Good Homes Alliance Neil May feels that the housing sector is in need of a sustainability policy that is rooted on “reality and on good science”. At present the policy is based on unrealistic targets.

More significantly, Mr May notes that “The principles for such a policy are simplicity, integrity and learning.” … ”In particular the energy, water, materials, and surface water sections are seriously flawed and have led to the installation of many poor designs and products which do not deliver environmental benefits, but rather cause unnecessary waste and cost.  The Zero Carbon Homes policy was also fundamentally misconceived.  No-one knew what it meant when it was announced and the Zero Carbon Hub has now spent three years of intense work trying to make the impossible possible.”

You can read the article here.

Tags: Sustainability Policy, sustainable housing, Uk Legislation
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The ‘Code for Sustainable Homes’

Posted on February 15th, 2011

The UK Government’s Code for Sustainable Homes is a set of environmental standards for designing and constructing new houses. These standards are higher than existing building regulations requirements. The aim is to not only reduce carbon emissions due to housing activity, but also improve social sustainability, “through designing and building homes that are affordable to heat and run and pleasant to live in”.

There are as many as nine categories of performance measurement for a home - energy use and CO2 emissions, water use, materials, surface water run-off, waste, pollution, health and wellbeing, management and ecology. A builder needs to meticulously understand and follow the sustainability aims in each of these nine enviro-social categories, in order to achieve some of them before being eligible to gain a Code rating from level 1 (entry level) to level 6 (zero carbon).

You can download the Code technical guidance here. You can also get case studies of sustainable homes built to the standards laid down by this code.

And if you are an environmentally conscious architect or builder, you will be happy to know that a sustainable housing project for building a large number of dwelling units based on this Code’s Level 6 (Zero Carbon) scheme has recently been approved for implementation in Peterborough.

Tags: Carbon Emissions, Code for Sustainable Home, Environmental Standards, sustainable housing
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Sustainable construction

Posted on December 13th, 2010

The UK Environmental Agency’s website provides some amount of guidance to builders and developers who are keen on showing that extra care and concern, much needed in the UK and elsewhere in times to come.

The basic guidelines for the construction industry on the topic of ‘sustainable construction’ – by no means exhaustive – can be found here.

If you intend getting your home built, be sure to look up several of the Agency’s compilations, available as pdf downlods from the same website.

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