The case for Centres of Excellence in sustainable building design

Background
For the last six years The Royal Academy of Engineering has been running a highly
successful industry-initiated and funded pilot scheme placing expert practitioners
in low carbon construction into top UK universities as Visiting Professors in
Building Engineering Physics. These visiting professors have contributed a range
of new skills and education in low carbon design for graduates who are now
beginning to take up positions in the industry.
This scheme has demonstrated the opportunity that would arise from deeper
penetration of wide-ranging low carbon design skills through the establishment
of a network of Centres of Excellence for integrated sustainable building design
across a number of UK universities.
This report evaluates the need for new skills and new approaches in low
carbon and sustainable design in order for the construction industry to reliably
and consistently deliver low carbon buildings at the lowest cost to society.
It addresses the range of skills appropriate to implementing passive energy
conservation such as natural ventilation and daylighting, the application of a
systems engineering approach to the implementation of low energy heating,
ventilation and air conditioning while integrating appropriate renewable and low
carbon energy sources both at the level of individual buildings and communitybased,
decentralised generation.
This report presents proposals for the formation, governance and structure of
the proposed centres of excellence, indicating the likely operating costs and
typical outputs. Finally a cost-benefit analysis is provided to put a monetary value
to society against the future work of specialist engineering graduates from the
centres of excellence.
The case for centres of excellence
With the current state of the UK and global economies the prospect of large scale
expenditure to secure our future energy supplies and combat climate change is
less than welcome. It is therefore particularly pressing that we now instigate action
to deliver future energy and climate security in the most cost-effective manner.
Evidence now being collected from the first tranche of prototype low carbon
buildings is not promising. On the whole it appears that the industry is not yet
adequately equipped to deliver low carbon construction, and where this has
been achieved it has often incurred greater cost than anticipated.
Both the evidence from demonstration projects and the assumed cost of low
carbon housing retrofits included in the Green Deal suggest that continuing with
the present approaches to carbon abatement would be unaffordable if we accept
the target expenditure rate for climate change mitigation arising from the Stern
review. Stern also highlighted the potentially much greater future costs of failing
to take early action on carbon abatement. Further, the demand for energy in
the UK continues to grow and any delay in implementing action to reduce that
demand will increase the present £200 billion predicted cost of renewing and
upgrading our electrical generation and distribution infrastructure.
It is vital therefore, that we now pursue carbon abatement at the lowest possible
cost in order to balance the future threats of energy and climate security with the
need for economic recovery.
The construction industry needs to make a step change into the low carbon
paradigm in order to meet the ambitious targets for low carbon refurbishment
6 The Royal Academy of Engineering