The case for Centres of Excellence in sustainable building design

Government has recently estimated that, as a result of The Green Deal, jobs in
domestic eco-refurbishment will rise from 27,000 at present to around 250,000
by 2030 [DECC 2010]. Given the similarity of expenditure rates for domestic and
commercial low carbon retrofit and refurbishment, then it is likely that a similar
increase in the workforce will be required to address carbon abatement in the
commercial sector. Clearly all these new workers will need to be skilled in low
carbon retrofit techniques and technologies. Not only will the individual workers
need to be skilled in low carbon, but their management will also require new
skills to design and lead low carbon installation and retrofit projects. Beyond the
construction industry the regulators, such as building control officers, will also
need to be fully conversant with the full range of low carbon techniques and
technologies.
However, the construction industry is not yet equipped to train these workers
while the necessary skills are not sufficiently widespread to consistently deliver
low carbon buildings. Thus building designers, public and private sector clients,
developers and contractors often resort to micro-generation technologies
to reduce emissions from conventional building designs and meet current
regulatory requirements rather than reducing the fundamental demands for
energy. Building energy conservation is among the most cost-effective means of
abating greenhouse gas emissions, while micro-generation installed on buildings
is amongst the least cost-effective.
The combined challenge in reducing fossil fuel dependency in both new and
refurbished buildings is vast and the construction industry presently lacks
sufficient resource with the knowledge and skills necessary to properly address it.
Without the appropriate skills in place, the cost to the UK economy of achieving
carbon reductions from the built environment could be significantly higher than
it need be, whilst possibly not achieving all of the required reductions.
Clearly it is vital to the health of the national economy to address the reduction of
greenhouse gas emissions from the built environment in the most cost-effective
way and not to simply adopt the path of least resistance. It has been demonstrated
through contemporary projects that reducing demand through energy efficient
design costs little more than conventional, inefficient design and the scale of
emissions reduction that can be achieved substantially exceeds that which could
be generated by expensive on-site renewable or micro-generation [King, 2008].
14 The Royal Academy of Engineering