zerochampion

Switched on

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I'll admit to being in total ignorance of the Switched On London event, now in its second year, until last night. Living and working very close to the area where the event, which consist of a series of light installations in and around London and Tower Bridges, that is somewhat embarrassing. The festival "aims to highlight the importance of sustainable lighting design in the night-time urban environment". It seems an attempt on the lighting industry's behalf to counter the perception that it's a wasteful sector caring little for energy use.

The Green Gauge February 8th

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A trawl through the web this week has revealed the Government's new plans for water usage, green gadgets and the new Housing Minister's first banana skin

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Government will fluff zero-carbon homes, report warns

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As found by Jo Will in the Society Guardian, a report in the Journal of Environmental Planning and Management, says that the Government should be making Code Level 6 mandatory for all new homes if it wants to deliver zero-carbon homes by 2016. With only housing associations required to reach Code Level 3 at present and no current obligations at all for commercial housebuilders, this is a problem. Another one is 'user error.' Where malfunctioning enregy systems, residents removing the technologies and installing 'low performance alternatives to suit their colour scheme' might be an issue.

Patent Advantage

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An interesting concept from corporate membership association cum thinktank the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in the form of a creative commons for eco-patents. This means firms who have come up with creative environmental ideas can share their trade secrets for the greater good.

The warm fuzz of freecycle

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I'm about to give away my first belonging as part of the Freecyle community. It's an old ghetto blaster that's collecting dust in my bedroom, and to my surprise there were plenty of takers for it, including a woman who had just dropped and broken the one she was planning to give to her teenage children. To quote recent commentor on this site Ian Kemmish there's a warm fuzzy feeling in both getting rid of something unwanted and helping out someone who needs your item. Surely this is transferable to large scale swapping of materials , products etc?

Cost values

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I'm not sure how closely one can compare the supply and the market for food and building materials, but on first consideration there seem obvious parallels. I was drawn to this reading an article written by Organic food provider Abel & Cole I received with a delivery earlier this month. It was on the rising cost of food - the reasons and how consumers would need to change their attitudes to buying food.

Muddled thinking

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I'm glad a Building reader has picked up on a bit of muddled thinking from PricewaterhouseCoopers. The firm is urging the industry to buy more products from China, according to a report in the magazine last week. John makes the point that this may be cheaper in pounds, but comes at a considerable price in carbon. This runs counter to PWC's web page on sustainability, which says: "We advise clients that getting on the right side of sustainability will make considerable demands of their time and resources. But that's simply the price of responsible leadership. Is your company ready to assume greater responsibility?" Is yours by rethinking your procurement advice?

BRE under fire

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I hear some concern voiced in the marketplace about the BRE from time to time. This is largely down to the fact that the former independent testing government-owned body is now a private outfit and very much in the marketplace with ambitious targets to double in size from a £40m to an £80m business. Perhaps it's just jealousy on the part of consultants losing out on big fee-paying jobs? Well, Ian Abley, an architect who runs a think-tank called Audacity, puts forward a case for concern more than just based on envy in this month's Construction Manager. Abley argues that we are expecting too much to have a growing business work a variety of complicated codes and legislation, or as he puts it: "An £80m business should not be built in partnership with government on the back of SAP chaos and code tinkering."

Don't underestimate embodied energy

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One of the most respected firms of quantity surveyors in the globe, Davis Langdon, appear to be doing some valuable work on embodied energy. A piece in the firm's Digging Beneath the Greenwash supplement in Building (pages 12 and 13) gives an indication of the fruits of six months research: "early assessments suggest that embodied energy and associated CO2 equates to between eight and 15 years of operational energy" says partner John Connaughton in the article.

Wolseley's new sustainable centre hit by floods

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Global products supplier Wolseley's attempt to create a new sustainable products centre was hampered somewhat by last week's floods. A posting on the centre's site informs us that work continues in spite of inclement conditions in the area. Work started on site at the Leamington-Spa project at the start of the month and the new centre is due for completion in October.

Insulation giant comes to the UK

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URSA Insulation recently announced that it will be opening a plant in the UK. The insulation company that specialises in the manufacture of glass wool has scheduled the opening of the plant for the second half of 2009. It is estimated that the factory will employ about 130 people; short-listed locations for the plant are Leeds, Glasgow and Edinburgh.