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BIM Standards: Sustainability (Paper) G#41579

BIM Standards: Sustainability (Paper)

GBE > Encyclopaedia > Code > Issues  > Paper > G#41579

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Published in BIM Heroes in 3 postings

7.2 Standards

“The Role of Value Standards in Sustainable Construction and Operation”

An “introduction” to relevant standards or AEC sector in relation to “stainability” and the value they deliver.

Outline structure:

The BIM Heroes programme is looking at the relationship between “quality” (ISO 9001), “project management” (ISO 21500), “asset management” (ISO 55000), and “information management” (ISO 19650).

“Sustainability” is both a “quality” issue, and has an impact on the long-term asset value (particularly with regards to upcoming climate change initiatives, EU green deal etc.

How do these fit into “quality”, “project”, asset” and “information management”?

The sophisticated calculations and analysis required to determine and guarantee “green building” is highly dependent on “information”, as well as engaging the right people, at the right time.

It is very difficult to implement “green building” at a late stage.

What are the most important things AEC should consider?

GBE Green = HERACEY™

My perspective is with 50 years in construction, 40 years in specification, 24 years in environmental and 10 years building calculators; but always disseminating on joined up environmental thinking, challenging the establishment and business as usual.

I prefer to dwell in environmental issues because sustainability is always compromised by bad economics, the way QSs run the show at the moment with:

  • Inadequate elemental cost planning,
  • based on an outline specification, not updated at full specification,
  • ignoring all the details, interfaces, etc.
  • violet price books for conventional methods and materials, that lack granularity,
  • no green methods or materials,
  • ‘value engineering’ aka ‘cost cutting’,
  • encouraging or causing substitution and surreptitious substitution
  • helping to increase the “Performance Gap” between designed and actual performance.

In the absence of a really useable definition for Sustainability, Green Building Encyclopaedia uses HERACEY™:

Healthy Environmental Resourceful Appropriate Competent Effective Yardstick.

If your project is addressing these issues robustly in its materials and methods of construction choices, then it is probably sustainable.

BRE Green

Unfortunately, BRE’s BREEAM and Green Guide to Specification which are our primary tools to ‘Green up our buildings’; are a long way from enabling “Green Building” as I understand it, but helps perpetuate “Less Violet Buildings” and will continue to do so until “Green Materials and Green methods” and included.

I have limited exposure to BIM, attending a few BIM events at BRE, BIM4M2, 1 about DOI and attending one and speaking at a second ‘Green BIM’ event in Leeds; another significant one called ‘Beyond BIM’ and I have presented about BIM twice from a specifiers perspective and lectured about BIM to Architecture students.

Another Green BIM speaker mentioned that “If we did not have to do BREEAM we could have done a greener building”, this response is repeated on many projects including some I was involved in.

My most recent exposure to BREEAM was spending weeks calculating areas of materials to record what had been designed but not to use the results to change the specification, it was already too late to change anything, now that cost plan budget was in place and restricting everything that followed.  Emphasizing the need to engage with “Sustainability” at the earliest stage in a project (before cost planning prevents changing anything).  Another project planning to use timber construction would not get any BREEAM points unless we switched to concrete, because GGtS did not have timber school building options.  I hope GGtS got better or we will be prevented from going low carbon by BREEAM and GGtS.

Quality Management

My approach to “Quality Management” is “say what you do, do what you say and keep records to prove it”; don’t add any more procedures to your day.

The real challenge is to maintain the clients brief, not drop the batten at any stage of the process and not allow bad cost planning to erode their ambition to invest well in a building that performs well and facilitate their business, but now with extra focus on energy, carbon along with costs.

“Project Management”:

  • Postman Pat seeing how fast it can be done on paper,
  • Ignoring correct sequence and curing times forcing the adoption of high-chemistry fast-acting poor-environmental materials.

“Cost Management”:

  • How cheap can we do it, legal minimum conventional construction, ignoring the green obligations and green ambitions, forcing the adoption of cheap high-chemistry materials.
  • Cost plan not being reviewed between outline and full specification once we know the true scope of work.

Procurement Methods

These two disciplines appear to be responsible for recommending the adoption of bespoke procurement methods:

  • That make it cheaper still and/or speed up construction on larger projects.
  • That hand over specification responsibility to builders who do not have the knowledge to do so.
  • That complicate and inadequately resolve trade contractor interfaces, design responsibilities.
  • Take an extra fee to ultimately reduce quality.
  • Grenfell review promoted the demise of procurement methods that drive the race to the bottom.

“Asset Management”

Never having had anything to do with “Asset Management”, I can see opportunities, but what do I know?

  • Government Soft Landings (GSL) or Soft Landings (SL) requiring design teams to be involved for several years after handover to ensure the building and its services are tested and commissioned correctly, operating at optimum performance and ensuring FM staff know how to maintain them.
  • Post Occupancy Evaluation (POE) for occupants to feedback and help design teams to get the building working effectively.
  • Digital Twins (DT) including updated as-built and updatable 3D model and specification information, potentially playing the role of CAD FM Operation & Maintenance Manuals (O&MM) without the hard copy.
  • Managing & Occupying Buildings Sustainably (MOBS) one of the best resources to make a difference, sadly no longer available.

“Information management”:

  • As a Specification writer and Carbon calculator I am acutely aware for the absence of and need for comprehensive competent information including: specification, test evidence, accreditations, method statements, maintenance data, LCA EPD, etc. for Apps to interrogate and process with many equations.
  • Post Grenfell enquiry I know I need to be sceptical about any test evidence dated pre-Grenfell, we need manufacturers to be honest with themselves and get everything independently tested outside of the UK until UK test houses and UKAS have got their acts in order.
  • All datasets need to be proactively kept up to date, and in the ideal world all datapoints need to be search engines interrogating the origin data every time the dataset is accessed.
  • Digital Object Identifiers (DOI) should help to keep track of the origin data, if DOI was adopted by AEC sector.
  • CoBIE & Product Data Templates (PDT) tables always presented a problem for me since there are not enough cells to post any useful environmental data, EPD AMD A2 needing 126 cells alone.
  • The best solution suggested by BIM for Manufacturers and Manufacturing (BIM4M2) was point one cell at an EPD inside a database,
  • I would suggest pointing at a machine-readable PDF and using DOI to maintain the connection.

Inevitably there is a need to address Whole Life Carbon (WLCO2) and Whole Life Costs (WLC) services that Designers and QS are not offering these without an extra fee; the tools do exist but only in the hands of a few.

  • Embodied carbon and sequestered carbon play a significant role in WLCO2 and need to inform our choice of materials and methods of construction.
  • If we want to take Low or Zero Carbon seriously and avoid greenwashing with Net Zero Carbon, we have to radically reconsider material choices:
  • No longer viable options: due to significantly high percentage of man-made CO2 comes from making these materials:
    • Cement, Lime, Concrete, Steel, Aluminium, Fired Clay, Plastics, Chemistry.
    • High rise using steel or concrete
  • Future-proof and viable options with either zero or negative CO2:
    • Stone, Timber, Plant-based materials, Earth-based materials, Plant and Earth based materials,
    • High-rise using Solid Wood Systems (SWS) Cross Laminated Timber Panel (CLT), GlueLam, etc.
    • Healthy Environmental Resourceful Appropriate Competent Effective Yardstick materials.
  • A whole new world that we need to get up to speed on rapidly to the point we can confidently adopt them and promote them to our future asset owners.

“Beyond BIM”

BIM technologies have been available since the 70s, but the industry has been in perpetual accommodation for the past 40 years.
However we are now finally at the eve of adaptation (BIM level 2/3)…furthermore we now have information technologies and a global data infrastructure that will accelerate us towards evolution allowing us to remake the industry in novel, but desperately needed, ways; transforming an adversarial self-serving Construction Industry into a low cost, low carbon Built Environment industry that sustainably serves society.
(Paul Fletcher 2012)

Relevant Standards: Driving Reduced Carbon and other environmental improvements.

Global

United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)

Global & National

World GBC & UK GBC (Green Building Council)

  • WorldGBC Net Zero Carbon Buildings Commitment by 2030 Sept. 2018
  • UKGBC Net Zero Carbon Buildings:
    • A Framework Definition: April 2019
  • WGBC Bringing Embodied Carbon Upfront
    • 2019 ‘Upfront Carbon’
    • disconnecting from OPEX therefore ignores TOTEX
    • Whole life VE becomes more complicated
  • Budget March 2021:
    • Government announcement: Build Back Better
    • UKGBC observation: Build Back Business as Usual
  • Net Zero Whole Life Carbon Roadmap for the Built Environment:
    • March 2021
    • October 2023: Postponed or dropped altogether by Conservative Government.

European Union

Energy Efficiency Directive 2012/27/EU (EED) and 2018 update

•       EU Directive 2012/27/EU as amended in 2018 sets rules and obligations for achieving the EU’s 2020 and 2030 energy efficiency targets.

•       With the European Green Deal (not UK’s failed GreenDeal), the EU is increasing its climate ambition and aims at becoming the first climate-neutral continent by 2050.

•       The European Commission (EC) has therefore revised the Energy Efficiency Directive, together with other EU energy and climate rules, to ensure that the new 2030 target of reducing greenhouse gas emission by at least 55% (compared to 1990) can be met.
(EC website ’22)

•       (https://energy.ec.europa.eu/topics/energy-efficiency/energy-efficiency-targets-directive-and-rules/energy-efficiency-directive_en)
•       EC are driving a reduction in-use energy of buildings; needing a radical response in levels of conductivity thermal insulation to achieve it.

•       When thermal insulation levels increase across the board and reduce building in-use energy demands considerably; then the embodied energy in the materials used to build them, grows proportionately, hence choice of building materials and methods needs to be targeted.

•       Low energy, Low carbon, Low chemistry and Low water materials including subsoil, earth-based, bio-based and timber materials become very relevant in this quest. 

2023     Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD):

·       Introduced the “Fit for 55” legislative package.

·       The proposal includes the following priorities:

·       Obligation for all member states to establish National building renovation plans

·       Establishment of minimum energy performance standards (MEPS), requiring the worst energy performance (non-residential) buildings to reach at least class F by 2030 and class E by 2033.

·       Promotion of technical assistance, including one-stop-shops and renovation passports

·       Introduction of new financial mechanisms to incentivize banks and mortgage holders to promote energy efficient renovation (mortgage portfolio standard)

·       Following the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the Commission issued additional proposals, such as the obligation to ensure new buildings are solar ready and to install solar energy installations on buildings.

(Wikipaedia ’23)
·       The EPBD recast represents a comprehensive action plan to renovate the EU’s buildings, bring down energy consumption, reduce building-related emissions and reach a climate neutral European building stock by 2050.

·       Embodied carbon is estimated to account for 10-25% of the total carbon footprint of buildings.
EC are driving a reduction in-use energy of buildings; needing a radical response in levels of conductivity thermal insulation to achieve it.

·       An especially welcome aspect of this EPBD recast is that it addresses embodied carbon and whole life greenhouse gas emissions (that is, both embodied and operational emissions).

·       Until now, embodied carbon has remained largely ignored in the EU and the building sector’s efforts to reduce its carbon footprint.

·       With this EPBD recast, this is set to change.

·       “This EPBD vote ensures several positive steps forward for decarbonising buildings, of which two are especially welcome to us: It will establish a harmonised framework for addressing and measuring whole-life carbon, and it will set targets for embodied carbon reduction”

·       (Bellona ID ’23)

·       “The EPBD recast represents a real opportunity to accelerate the emissions reduction trajectory for embodied carbon, and we expect to see the level of action that the Parliament has now called for maintained throughout trilogues”

·       (Bellona MA ’23)

·       A strong EPBD is critical to reaching climate targets

·       Buildings account for approximately 40% of the EU’s total energy consumption and 36% of its CO2 emissions.

·       Meanwhile, three out of four buildings in the EU are still energy inefficient.

·       The EPBD recast represents a comprehensive action plan to renovate the EU’s buildings, bring down energy consumption, reduce building-related emissions and reach a climate neutral European building stock by 2050.

·       Embodied carbon is estimated to account for 10-25% of the total carbon footprint of buildings.

·       Heavy industries such as cement and steel production account for a large portion of these emissions associated with the construction, renovation, and demolition of buildings.

·       (EC ’23)

What the EPBD says about embodied carbon

·       The EPBD recast sets out a requirement to both calculate and establish targets to reduce building related emissions throughout the building’s life-cycle.

·       The European Parliament position on the EPBD that was voted on, calls for an EU-wide framework for calculating life-cycle Global Warming Potential (GWP), and for Member States to publish roadmaps that introduce limit values and targets on life-cycle GWP.

·       Each Member State has to develop national building renovation plans, including renovation targets suited to each country’s building stock and needs, and illustrate how these national targets are to be met.

·       By calling for this, the EU is ensuring that high quality data on embodied carbon will be widely available to the myriad of actors in the buildings sector.

·       Coupled with the clear signals provided by targets, this information could help trigger a scale-up of the production and use of low-carbon construction materials.

·       In this sense, it is also important for the EPBD to be aligned with the on-going recast of the Construction Products Regulation (CPR).

·       (Bellona Europe ’23)

UK Government

November 2023 Public Procurement Verification system

  • Launched with Constructing Excellence
  • Necessary because despite the rules nobody was doing it properly?
  • The paperwork was too big a burden!
  • Despite the thresholds, exclusions, declaring conflicts of interest, etc.
  • Fast tracking political friends, UK corruption was all possible, especially during COVID pandemic.

2021     UK Environment Bill

  • 2030 All new Buildings must be Net Zero Carbon
  • 2050 All existing building stock to be Net Zero Carbon
  • 2023 All targets postponed or dropped by Conservative Government

Sustainable Government Procurement?

  • Water Sector: Gov. driver:
  • Focus on Total Expenditure (TOTEX) = Capital Expenditure (CAPEX) + Operational Expenditure (OPEX)
  • Saving £m by looking at Whole Life Costs (WLC)
  • Other Sector roll out? Nothing happening
  • October 2023 declining ambitions highly unlikely it ever will.

Government Procurement: Post-Brexit:

  • EU Procurement Rules V2: No longer relevant to UK, except if exporting from UK to EU
    • CE mark Essential Requirements
    • Environmental added:
    • CEN Technical Committees TC 350 and TC351 rolled out >
    • LCA > EN 15804 > Product Category Rules > Impacts > EPD reports
    • CE mark replaced by UKCA for goods in UK Jan. ‘21
    • Essential requirements still relevant: but aim at BSs not ENs?
    • 2023 Conservative Gov. considering dropping UKCA after so much investment by industry and commerce.
    • GPP Green Public Procurement: Still possible, if anybody could be asked.
    • OGC Office of Government Commerce:
    • Gateway Process Reviews:
    • More due diligence than specification audit?

UK Government influences others?

UK Government Publishes others join in

  • But is anybody in the industry reading?
    • Librarian or Knowledge Manager Yes:
    • Directors and executives? No, everybody is busy
  • UK Government Commitment to Net Zero Carbon 2050
    • ‘Construction 2025’: July 2013
    • Committee on Climate Change: May 2019:
    • The Construction Playbook: V1 Dec. 2020
    • Procurement Policy Note PPN 02/21 WTO GPA & UK-EU TCA
  • Infrastructure
    • National Infrastructure Strategy Nov. 2020 CP 329
  • Government Soft Landings (GSL) still there, being adopted.

UK Government ‘Construction 2025’

  • July 2013
  • Industrial Strategy: Government and Industry in Partnership
    • 33% lower costs
    • 50% faster delivery
    • 50% lower emissions
    • Did anybody sign up to this madness?
    • Was anybody consulted? PM & QS? Nobody else?
  • Discounts on top of Constructing Excellence’s
    • 10% year on year improvement challenge that has proved impossible
  • The Construction industry is already effectively financially and morally bankrupt.
    • Supported by supply chain funding Main Contractors (MC)
      • with 90+ days delay on payments to sub-contractors (SC)
      • And severe mental stress
      • And high suicide rates
    • Despite lip service: MCs signing up to health and wellbeing & modern slavery campaigns

UK Government
Committee on Climate Change

UK Government
The Construction Playbook V1 Dec. 2020

  • Sourcing and contracting public works projects and programmes
  • ‘Build Back Greener’
  • But still no verification until launched in November 2023

UK Government
National Infrastructure Strategy Nov. 2020 CP 329

  • Fairer Faster Greener
  • COVID recovery
  • Decarbonising & Climate Change Adaptation
  • Investment plans
  • Transport
    • Tailpipe emissions
    • Electric Vehicles (EV) infrastructure
      • but Renewable Energy (RE) too?
    • Energy
      • More renewables % in mains electricity mix, now better than Gas
    • Buildings (27m homes)
      • Green homes Grant
      • Withdrawn April 2021
    • Nature for Climate fund
      • 30,000 hectares of trees/year
      • To replace HS2 devastation?
      • To pay for Carbon Offsets and then get burned down by wildfires
    • 10 Point plan for Green Industrial Revolution
    • October 2023 Government abandoned Green Ambitions

UK Government Commitment to Net Zero Carbon 2050?

2023 All promises made leading to Brexit are now dropped or postponed.

National & Local Government
Who is setting energy or carbon targets?

  • Development Control? Planning? Land Owners? Funders? Insurers?
    • Belgium set Passivhaus standard (thermal comfort and indoor air quality, in use energy and carbon)
    • Northern Ireland set Net Zero Targets
    • Scotland set Passivhaus standard.
      • Somebody claimed £100,000 increase per house.
      • Scotland postponed/cancelled Passivhaus requirement.
      • If you ask a violet builder to price a green building they will start with the violet price then add on extras for greenness and a big safety margin for unfamiliarity; then substitute everything.
      • Grow green builders.
      • Little Hope with CITB Construction Industry Training Board BAU Business as Usual approach.
    • Building Control:
      • Building Regulations Approved Document L In-use Energy (BRADL)
        • But air leakiness will continue to erode energy performance.
      • Building Regulations Approved Document Z Embodied Carbon (BRADZ) Still Pending.

Climate and Biodiversity Emergency

  • UK Government Signed up 1st May 2019
  • Local authorities followed suit: without any idea how and little follow up action
  • Extinction Rebellion: frustration at lack of action by all governments
  • David Attenborough’s Blue planet series.
  • Architects Climate Action Network (ACAN)
  • Greta Thunberg’s behaviour change campaign.
    • Global call to Adults to join school kids
    • Architects Declare: Oct 2019
    • Construction Declare: Oct 2019
    • Education Declare
      • but ARB and RIBA sleeping until October 2023
      • finally woke up after Grenfell highlighted incompetence
      • Universities won’t spend the students fee on expert speakers
    • Structural & Civil Engineers Declare
    • Interior Design Declare: March 2021
    • Homeowners Declare via ACAN

Local
London Plan Whole Life-Cycle Carbon Assessment

  • ADD2363 August 2019
  • Operational emissions
    • g. Heating, Hot water
  • Embodied carbon are not currently measured

LETI London Energy Transformation Initiative

  • (Campaign for better)
  • Energy & Carbon in use and embodied
  • Public consultation on Future Buildings Standard April 2021
  • Later renamed to put less emphasis on London more emphasis on Low

Government > Sector
Government Soft Landings (GSL)

  • Revised Guidance for the Public Sector
  • on applying BS 8536-1:2022:Briefing for design and construction
  • Part 1:2015:Code of Practice for Facilities management (Buildings Infrastructure)
  • Part 2:2016:Code of Practice for Asset management (Linear and Geographical Infrastructure)
  • Relates strongly with BIM Level 2
    • PAS 1192 Series
    • And Government Soft Landings (GSL)
  • Freely available to download (Allegedly: but dead link from NBS)

Sector
Environment Sectors Prepares

  • LCA Life Cycle Assessment & EPD Environmental Product Declarations
    • Method: Normalising to EN 15804:2012, over last decade +Amendment AMD A1 2013 +AMD A2
    • All new LCA EPD must be in AMD A2 format
    • AMD A2 aligned EPD with European Commission’s PEF to avoid duplication
    • Product Environmental Footprinting (PEF) because LCA EPD has been hijacked by the violets
    • A1 and A2 EPDs are incompatible and should not be compared
    • EPD platforms and carbon calculators need to be updated to AMD A2
    • But most EPD are AMD A1 and all must be updated to AMD A2
    • Sequestered Carbon Method, outside of EN 15804 system boundaries
    • Biogenic carbon, EN 16449:2014
    • Manufacturers: 10,000 EPDs in market, plenty are in construction materials
    • But most are AMD A1 and all must be updated to AMD A2
    • 5 year cycle of regeneration as AMD A1 EPDs expire or products improve and manufacturers want to declare it
  • LCA is a broader set of impacts, but we still need to focus on:
    • Embodied carbon, ≈ CAPEX Capital Expenditure
    • Sequestered Carbon, Biogenic carbon, Timber and Bio-based materials, not Fossil carbon
    • EN 16449:2014 (we might not be in EU but standards are private enterprise in UK)
    • In use carbon, ≈ OPEX Operational Expenditure
    • WLC Whole Life Carbon ≈ TOTEX Total Expenditure
  • PAS 2080:2016 Whole Life carbon Assessment
  • RICS Carbon Calculation methodology Ed. 1 Nov. 2017
  • ICE Inventory of Carbon & Energy V3 Nov. 2019
  • CEEQUAL 6 Civil Engineering Environmental Assessment Method

Sector
PAS 2080 Whole Life Carbon Assessment

  • BSI
    • Publicly Available Specification
    • PAS 2080:2016 Whole Life carbon Assessment
  • The Green Construction Board
    • Guidance Document for PAS 2080
    • Managing Whole Life Carbon in Infrastructure
    • Roles and Responsibilities
    • Process
    • Introduction to LCA
    • Case Studies
    • Carbon Measurement Tools
    • Rules for Calculations
    • Sample datasets from many sources

Environmental Assessment Methods: Drive change?

  • BREEAM driven via GGtS & GBL
    • Green Guide to Specification (GGtS)
      • BRE Green not GBE Green
      • ABC ratings should be relegated to DEF and ABC are missing
      • Industry average Generic Materials (no incentive to improve)
      • 1200 Readymade Assemblies (probably not what you are doing)
        • Excluding all the metal and plastic accessories
        • All high energy and or high carbon accessories
        • Accounting for 20% of the impacts
      • Bespoke assessments (BRE take their time)
        • 400 more assemblies added? Still not green enough
      • GreenBook Live (GBL) Products directory
        • Mostly plastic or bitumen backed carpets (BRE Green!)
        • BRE Environmental Profiles (EP) predating EN 15804
        • = EPD once recalculated to EN 15804
      • BREEAM Infrastructure (Pilot)
        • Like all BREEAM Tools
          • it records what you did,
          • not change the way you did it
          • “If not BREEAM, could have been greener”
        • HS2 destroys easy targets (whilst COVID lockdown hid evidence)
          • Least line of resistance, cheaper than Agricultural land?
          • Many SSSI Sites of Special Scientific Interest
          • Many Ancient forests
          • 400 year old tree felled for a maintenance slip loop road that should have been moved 100 m
        • It completely fails on behaviour change.

Infrastructure Environmental Assessment Method: Drive change?

  • CEEQUAL V5
  • 15 years, 1300 trained assessors,
  • now belongs to BRE’s
  • + BREEAM Infrastructure Pilot
  • = CEEQUAL 6
    • June 2019,
    • + Whole Life Carbon
  • https://www.ceequalonline.com/login/
  • Must be trained to use it.
  • Cannot even see it until in training.
  • Video Thank you BRE, link will not work
  • Fee: £3000 (£3m)-£38,000 (£1000m)

Railways England?

  • National Rail Design Standards
  • National Rail Specification? Nothing yet

Highways England:

  • DoT Standards
  • National Road Specification?

Guidance:

  • Missed opportunity: No promotion just updated and reissued
    • Example recycled content permitted, but nobody knew
  • What about carbon? Nothing yet

Missed opportunity:

  • SusStations: Interreg funded development of an Environmental Assessment Method (EAM) for railway stations

Sector Tools
ICE database

  • ICE Inventory of Carbon & Energy
  • V3 remains free access
  • 2019
  • Many more derived from consistent method LCA
  • More Infrastructure & Civils Datasets
  • Haulage and transport datasets
  • Less Energy datasets
  • Update funded by infrastructure:
    • Heathrow, RSSB, EA
  • https://circularecology.com/embodied-carbon-footprint-html

Highways England Carbon Tool

  • Guidance
  • July 2020
  • Version v 2.3
  • Excel On-line tool
  • e.g. Schedules for data collection

Life Cycle Analysis of Transport

  • Impact of road and rail transport in LCA
    • Flights are very carbon and energy inefficient
    • Ships are very efficient
    • Rail is very efficient
    • Road is worse
    • Big trucks are better than small vans
  • Role of consolidation centres
    • Long haul in big trucks or trains
    • Pallet services removes many small vehicles off road
      • Needs less drivers
    • Switch goods to smaller trucks in consolidation centres
    • Short haul in small trucks for easy access
    • Round robin journeys: site <> consolidation centres

ISE Carbon tool: Structures

MEP Services Carbon Accounting

  • BSRIA carbon accounting for services:
  • Rules of engagement
  • Topic Guide TG3/2012
  • Metals and Plastics
  • Sections:
    • duct simplicity
    • cable complexity
  • Components & Accessories
  • Circuit boards:
    • generic values/mm2
  • Single issue focus is not helpful unless it is all brought together in one place.

 CIBSE Calculator & Templates

  • TM65 Carbon calculating in Mechanical, Electrical, Public health services
  • Rules of engagement
  • Plans for data collection and dissemination:

CIBSE Data Collection project

  • 1 Domestic building generic datasets (pipes, cables and kit)
  • 2 Non-Domestic generic datasets (pipes, ducts, cables and kit)
  • 3 Domestic products specific datasets
  • 4 Non-Domestic product specific datasets
  • Well underway if not substantially complete

Professional – Practice
RICS Whole Life Carbon

  • Whole Life Carbon Assessment for the built Environment
  • Calculation methodology
  • Edition 1 Nov. 2017
  • Elemental Assemblies
    • Relates to elemental cost planning
      • Relates to Spon/Laxton/BICS
      • Not confident this helps anybody
    • Bad Cost planning?
      • Especially in Infrastructure projects
      • Bankrupt construction industry?
    • Crippled Supply chain?
      • Late payments in excess of 90 days?
      • Mental Stress prevails?
      • Suicide rates are high.
    • Public consultation 2023
      • Listened to Violet sector looking after its interests
      • Over complicated carbon sequestration to point it cannot practically be taken into account
      • Is effectively abandoned timber as a solution to climate crisis
      • But despite that architects that care know better.

PFI & PPP Contracts:

  • Government does not collect enough tax so introduced a way to pay for infrastructure and buildings:
  • Private Finance Initiative (PFI) or Private Public Partnership (PPP)
  • Letting private Contractors build and private Facilities Management (FM) enterprises make £ millions, maintaining them for 25 years.
  • So lucrative that most Constructors expanded into Facilities Management others gave up and converted to FM enterprises.
  • Very little joined up environmental thinking.
  • Weak on specification and failed to control impacts of materials choices.
  • Short life materials and 25 year long-life warranties and premiums to pay: the straw that breaks the camel’s back, helping to bankrupt NHS.

PFI PPP Case studies:

  • 50 km of capped and coved skirtings that fails when the phthalate plasticisers in the PVC polymer migrates into the adhesive destroying its ability to stick, creating voids for bacteria to reside in, inside hospitals.
  • Or building school walls without wall ties, wall falling off building.
    • Somebody saved a few quid and put children lives at risk.
  • Or building with Reinforced Autoclaved Aerated Concrete (RAAC) floors and roofs,
    • Needing temporary props until building replaced.
  • PFI and PPP is superseded by a better system in Scotland.
  • The latest thinking is that PPP will help to fund replacement of RAAC, which probably was adopted to save money in PFI or PPP projects in the first place.

Practice
Sustainable Engineering Specification?

  • Engineer’s use Specification Templates
  • New cover for each job
  • List all materials and techniques Green and Violet
  • Permit greener options but do not require it.
  • Little or no editing to be job specific.
  • Rely on drawings to specify which, where.

Materials: Concrete Mixing Plants

  • Have two cement silos.
  • Ordinary Portland Cement (OPC) & Ground Granulated Blastfurnace Slag Cement (GGBS)
  • GGBS is significantly lower Carbon than OPC
  • They save money by blending OPC and GGBS
  • A slower set but same ultimate strength
  • Just enough GGBS so you won’t notice
  • OPC drives GGBS hydration to maintain 7 & 28 day strengths
  • Colour difference: OPC: cold grey, GGBS: Warm grey.

© NGS GBE GBC GRC GBL BrianSpecMan
4th November 2023 – 8th November 2023

Revisions

Revision No. Description Author Date
A00 Updated GBE CPD Carbon Counting Calculators.PPTX BRM 04/11/2023
A00 Copied to GBC CPD BIM Heroes Working.docx BRM 04/11/2023
A00 Extracted outline from BIM Heroes BRM 04/11/2023
A00 Continue editing and issue 1st draft BRM 06/11/2023
A00 Added more EU directives

Reorganise topicals

 BRM 08/11/2023

© GBE GBC GRC GBL NGS ASWS Brian Murphy aka BrianSpecMan ****
5th February 2024 – 6th February 2024

Images:

BrianSpecMan BRM on BIM Heroes

© GBE GBC GRC GBL NGS ASWS Brian Murphy aka BrianSpecMan ****
5th February 2024

See Also:

GBE Opinion

GBE Issue Papers

GBE Checklist

GBE Jargon Buster

  • Theme:
    • Topic

GBE CPD

GBE Library

  • List of related documents by authoritative bodies

© GBE GBC GRC GBL NGS ASWS Brian Murphy aka BrianSpecMan ****
5th February 2024

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