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The aim of the initiative is to accelerate the take-up of cost-effective, low-carbon initiatives during non-residential building refurbishment.
The Low-Carbon Building Accelerator seeks to demonstrate that major refurbishments of non-residential buildings can be completed in both a low-carbon and a cost-effective manner. It involves the Carbon Trust’s specialist consultants working with a range of building projects in the retail, hospitality, government and education sectors. The specialist consultants are working with developers and their advisors, providing input on how to ensure that refurbishment projects are carried out in a way that minimises the carbon emissions from the building. Case studies backed up by robust data will be published at the end of each project
Buildings, refurbishments and climate change
Buildings are responsible for approximately 40% of the carbon emissions in the UK, with non-residential buildings responsible for approximately half of this. Within the UK’s building population, many older buildings tend to have poor energy performance with outdated structural and service designs. In addition, climatic trends and changes in building use (e.g. more computers) are stressing our building’s capabilities to provide a comfortable working environment.
Significant focus has been placed on the carbon efficiency of new buildings. However, new build represents only a small fraction of the available opportunities to reduce carbon emissions from buildings (ca. 1.5% of the UK building stock are new builds each year).
Buildings typically experience a number of refurbishments throughout their life, with a major refurbishment every 20-30 years. These refurbishments represent an opportunity to reduce carbon emissions through refreshing a building’s fabric and services equipment.
Barriers
Multiple barriers, prevalent throughout the building industry are preventing the uptake of low-carbon initiatives within refurbishments:
- Marginal financial benefits. Energy has historically been cheap, forming only a small component of an organisation’s overall costs
- Lack of effective regulatory stimulus to induce change with clear financial benefits
- Lack of visible, practical and credible non-exemplar precedents demonstrating the cost-effective application of low carbon technologies in refurbished buildings
- Commercial drivers throughout the construction industry discourage the take-up of low-carbon initiatives whilst aggressive timescales lead to inefficient design.
Drivers for change
- Corporate responsibility drivers are beginning to stimulate change, particularly in sectors where the public is becoming more demanding
- Increasing energy prices are focusing attention on energy use in buildings
- New Building Regulations focus on reducing carbon emissions from Buildings The advent of the European Directive on Buildings is also set to force real changes over the next few years in the way buildings are designed and maintained
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