The case for Centres of Excellence in sustainable building design

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Preface This report presents the outcome of an exercise to establish the costs and benefits for the UK economy of creating a network of centres of excellence in integrated, sustainable design for construction. These centres will promote knowledge, teaching and research in sustainable and low carbon design techniques and the application of technologies for the benefit of the UK low carbon construction industry. The project was funded by the following organisations: The Centre for Window & Cladding Technology Doug King, Principal of King Shaw Associates Ltd and Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in Building Engineering Physics at the University of Bath The Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers The Happold Trust King Shaw Associates Ltd The Ove Arup Foundation The Royal Academy of Engineering The University of Bath Knowledge Transfer Partnership The report was prepared by Doug King, Principal of King Shaw Associates Ltd and Royal Academy of Engineering Visiting Professor in Building Engineering Physics, with contributions from Dr Paul McCombie, Deputy Head, Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering at the University of Bath and Steve Arnold of Metroeconomica. The report could not have been produced without the support and guidance of Eur Ing Ian Bowbrick at The Royal Academy of Engineering. The 2011 Low Carbon Construction Skills Survey was undertaken by IPSOS Mori. This is the second report on building engineering physics that Doug King has written for The Royal Academy of Engineering. The first, Engineering a low carbon built environment, is available from www.raeng.org.uk/elcbe 4 The Royal Academy of Engineering
Executive summary Executive summary Introduction While the aim of climate policy in the UK is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by the year 2050, energy consumption in the built environment is responsible for around 45% of emissions of CO2, the principal greenhouse gas. Clearly the construction industry has a major role to play in achieving our policy targets, yet the knowledge and skills necessary to achieve such dramatic reductions are presently insufficient to meet the challenge. This report recommends the establishment of a network of centres of excellence in integrated sustainable building design to support the construction industry through a period of rapid and unprecedented change. These centres will be: • hubs for collection and dissemination of existing knowledge and the generation of new • providers of interdisciplinary education both for students and established professionals; • fundamental researchers into emerging low carbon design techniques and technologies • portals to academic research capability for businesses requiring research support; • repositories of unimpeachable expertise accessible to policymakers and the media. This report has evaluated the economic benefits to the UK from just one aspect of the activities of the proposed centres: the provision of specialist undergraduate engineering education. By bringing together building engineering physics with engineering, architectural and systems design, these centres will equip students with the skills to implement passive energy conservation, appropriate renewable and low carbon technologies and appropriate, community-based, decentralised generation. Engineering graduates trained at these Centres of Excellence will enter the construction industry equipped with the skills to deliver the necessary carbon abatement at a cost significantly below the present, business as usual, approach. Considering this aspect alone, the Centres of Excellence represent an unprecedented opportunity for the UK to strengthen its position as a leader in low carbon construction. Seed funding of just £30 million over five years to establish four such centres of excellence would deliver cumulative savings with a net present value in excess of £1 billion by 2030 and a reduction in emissions of 3.5 million tonnes of CO2 per annum. By 2050 the cumulative savings would have risen to over £6 billion net present value and a reduction in emissions of nearly 11 million tonnes of CO2 per annum, about 2.5% of the target. The other, unquantifiable benefits from establishing the centres of excellence have not been evaluated financially in this study, but nevertheless the cumulative impact will, without doubt, far exceed the simple savings quoted herein. This report forms part of the Department for Business Innovation and Skills Low Carbon Construction Action Plan. The case for Centres of Excellence in sustainable building design 5
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Conclusion While the results are de
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The case for Centres of Excellence in sustainable building design

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