Sustainability Tools

Amanda Gallagher, BRE Ireland, Dublin

Contents

Sustainability Tools• Developments & Masterplans• Buildings • Energy • Materials• Waste• Post Occupancy Evaluation

Sustainability Issues in the Built Environment

Site Selection

Planning & Design

Construction Building Operation

Demolition

Greenfield or Brownfield Site

Impact on Natural Habitat

Existing infrastructure (roads/energy/transport networks)

Proximity to amenities and populated areas

Economic centres/creation of jobs

Probability of Flooding

Noise Assessment

Stakeholder Consultation

Orientation

Low Carbon Design

Placemaking & Community

Water Conservation

Life Cycle Costing

Fitness for Purpose

Lighting

Heating

Ventilation

Infrastructure

Travel Plans

Material Specification

Site Ecology & Landscape Design

Flood Risk Prevention

Polluting Chemicals and Substances

Construction Site Impacts

• Site Waste Management

• Energy & Water Use

• Transport Emissions

• Dust & Pollution

Considerate Constructors

Sustainable Materials

Recycled Aggregates

Local Labour/Workforce

Commissioning and Building Handover

Building User Guide

Energy Use

Water Use

Maintainability

Durability

User Controls

Occupant Satisfaction

Occupant Productivity (non domestic buildings)

Acoustic Performance

Recyclable Materials

Demolition Audits

Disposal of Materials

Avoiding obsolescence

Flexibility

Hazardous Materials

Why do we need specific guidance on sustainability?

• Definitions are not always that helpful in practice:– Sustainable buildings definition (SBTG):

“…as small an eco-footprint as possible, economic to run over its whole life cycle and fits well with the needs of the local community”

• Need to define what you want to achieve in your context

• Education, training and awareness raising

• Means of assessing design options and applications

• Level playing field for developers

• Showing the future direction of policy

How can sustainability tools help?

• Developers / architects / design teams:

– What is the range of issues to consider?

– How are they linked together?

– What standards and advice are out there?

– What might decision makers expect?

– What does good practice look like – marketing opportunities?

– How can I do more – simple “wins”?

– What might I have to consider in the future?

Sustainability Assessment Tools

Development

Tools

• Masterplanning/Developments– Sustainability Checklists

– Greenprint

– BREEAM Communities

• Buildings– BREEAM/Code for Sustainable Homes

– LEED/Greenstar

– Energy (SBEM/SAP, PHPP etc. etc.)

– Environmental Design and Life Cycle Assessment Tool (ENVEST)

– Materials (Environmental Profiles & Green Guide to Specification)

– Construction site waste (Smart Waste)

• Post Occupancy Evaluation

Sustainability in Masterplans & Developments.

• Sustainability Checklists for Developments• Greenprint • BREEAM Communities

What can Sustainability Checklists cover?

• Site choice – Greenfield, destruction of natural habitat

• Development design and layout – Regional Sustainability Checklists / Climate Change Tool kits / DQIs

• Individual building performance – BREEAM / Ecohomes

• Elements of construction process – ICE Demolition Protocol

• Procurement– The OGC Achieving Excellence Procurement Guide

• Post-build operation and management– BRE/Carbon Trust / EST guides

… and any combination!

Scored sustainability checklist - question:

Objective

Question 1.4 (2)

Mark for target reached:Targets Minimum 1

Good practice 2

Best practice 3

Minimum not met 0

0

(a) mark awarded for this question:

(b) Question weighting: 0.4

Total Question score: (a) x (b): 0

Justification

More than 50% of the roof area used for rainwater harvesting or green roofs; captured water used for irrigation and /or toilet flushing and/or washing machines

Links to the RSS/ IRF RSS) CC2 Climate Change, CC3 Resource use

Considered not applicable for this application:

To ensure that roof space is used productively to minimise water demand and manage water run-off on the site.

What percentage of the total roof area in the development is designed to allow the harvesting of rain water for re-use and/or is covered by green roofs?

See relevant local planning authority standard for minimum required.

50% of the roof area used for rainwater harvesting or green roofs

What we have learned in other work:

• Checklists are an increasingly common approach.

• SEEDA/BRE regional checklist recognised as part of the Sustainable Communities agenda – Egan Commission and SBTG recommended that it should be rolled out to all regions in England (extensive tailoring now underway in each region).

• Developers will not fill them in unless required to – must be a level playing field.

• Need to quantify what you want – or specify a process. Ecobuild conference reiterated this from both architects and developers. Level playing field issue again.

• Minimum, good and best practice scoring enable higher standards to be easily specified for more sensitive sites.

GreenPrint - Bringing it all together

Climate Change

Resources

Transport

Ecology

Business

Placemaking

Community

Buildings

What is GreenPrint?• Methodology to maximise the

potential for sustainable communities• Workshop led approach involving the

whole stakeholder team• Bespoke – can be tailored to

individual client needs• Sets out clear understandable

sustainability objectives and benchmarks

• Prioritises sustainability issues most important to a development

• Independent appraisal of final plans• Provides an overall GreenPrint Score

and Rating

BREEAM Communities

• Similar to Greenprint but ‘fixed’ criteria. Not Bespoke• Awarded a BREEAM Rating and certified by the BREEAM

Office.• Planning tool for developers and local authorities.• Measures: -

– Climate Change & Energy– Community– Placemaking– Buildings– Transport and movement– Ecology– Resources– Business

Buildings

• BREEAM• Code for Sustainable Homes• LEED• Greenstar

What is BREEAM?

• BRE Environmental Assessment Method

• Certification scheme

• Measure of sustainability

• Independent & credible

• Holistic

• Customer focused

• Credits and evidence based

BREEAM Categories

• Management

• Energy

• Water

• Land Use and Ecology

• Health and Wellbeing

• Transport

• Materials

• Waste

• Pollution

Scoring

• Management

• Health and Wellbeing

• Energy

• Transport

• Water

• Materials

• Waste

• Land Use and Ecology

• Pollution

• Management

• Health and Wellbeing

• Energy

• Transport

• Water

• Materials

• Waste

• Land Use and Ecology

• Pollution

Ass

essm

ent I

ssue

s

BREEAMScore

PASS 30% GOOD 45% VERY GOOD 55%EXCELLENT 70%OUTSTANDING 85%

Envi

ronm

enta

l Wei

ghtin

gs

Sing

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core

Cat

egor

y Sc

ores

Mandatory Credits (Minimum Standards)• Aims:

– To avoid that a building achieves an Excellent rating, but does not achieve compliance with straightforward BREEAM issues e.g. storage of recyclable waste or installation of a water meter.

– Comparability across different schemes and BREEAM buildings

• The higher the BREEAM rating the more mandatory requirements there are and progressively harder they become.

Innovation Credits

• Additional recognition for ‘innovation in the field of sustainable performance’, above and beyond what is currently recognised and rewarded in BREEAM

• Two ways of obtaining Innovation Credits:

1. By meeting exemplary level performance requirements for an existing BREEAM issue

2. Where an application is made to BRE Global to have a particular building feature or process recognised as ‘innovative’

BREEAM 2008

2008 BREEAM Manuals

available on the BREEAM Websitehttp://www.breeam.org

Code for Sustainable Homes

• The Code for Sustainable Homes is an environmental assessment method for rating and certifying the performance of new homes

• Assessment is a two stage process – design and post construction• The Code provides an all-round measure of sustainability against

nine categories of sustainable design• A Code rating became mandatory for all new build homes from 1st

May 2008 and has been operational in England since April 2007– A code assessment results in a rating of between 1 and 6 and a certificate is

provided with the dwelling– Non-assessed dwellings will be accompanied by a nil-rated certificate

Mandatory Performance Levels

• The Code covers nine categories of sustainable design– Energy/CO2– Water– Materials– Surface Water Runoff– Waste – Pollution – Health and Wellbeing– Management– Ecology

• Six of these contain mandatory performance levels• Energy and Water have increasing minimum standards for each Code

level

Mandatory Performance Standards

• Entry Level requirements for:– Energy

– Water

– Materials

– Surface Water run-off

– Waste

Failure to meet the mandatory requirements will result in a zero rating

BREEAM International

UKRep. IrelandThe NetherlandsDenmarkPolandNorwayTurkeyIcelandRomaniaSpainSwedenIsraelAbu DhabiAlgiersDubai

Czech RepublicFranceGermanyHungaryItalyLuxembourgLebanonMalaysiaMoroccoBelgiumSwitzerlandPhilippinesPolandQatarRomaniaUSA

LEED

• US Green Building Council• Green Building Certification Scheme• Credit based Assessment Method• Awards performance in

– Sustainable Sites – Water Efficiency – Energy & Atmosphere – Materials & Resources– Indoor Environmental Quality – Locations & Linkages– Awareness & Education– Innovation in Design– Regional Priority

Greenstar

• Green Building Council Australia (GBCA)• Environmental Rating System for Buildings in Australia• Measures: -

– Management

– Indoor Environment Quality

– Energy

– Transport

– Water

– Materials

– Land Use & Ecology

– Emissions

– Innovation

Energy

• SBEM • SAP• Passive House Planning Package (PHPP)

SBEM

SAP

PassivHaus – the technical definition

• The design heat load is limited to the load that can be transported by the minimum required ventilation air

10 W/m2 heating load calculation is quite simple:

1 m³/(m²h) × 30 °C × 0.33 Wh/(m³K) = 10 W/m²

 

minimum ventilation rate of 0.4 ac/h is required for indoor air quality, that results in at least 1 m³/(m²h) being delivered by the ventilation system

maximum heat input provided via the fresh incoming air

specific heat capacity of the air

Passivhaus Planning Package (PHPP)

ENVEST 2

• Environmental Design & Life Cycle Assessment Tool• Whole Life Costing

– Environmental Design Vs Financial Impact

• Predicts Environmental Impact– Materials

– Heating

– Cooling

– Building Operation

Materials : Measuring environmental impact

SMARTWaste

• Waste benchmarking• Waste reduction• Pre-demolition audit• Reuse and recycling site locator • Related training, consultancy and guidance

Post Occupancy Evaluation – Measuring Sustainability Post Construction

Energy, water and sustainability audits– Monitoring and recording consumption levels to allow benchmarking

BREEAM assessments– Determining if design stage commitments have been made

Design Quality Method– Evaluating architecture, environmental engineering, user comfort, whole

life costs, detail design and user satisfaction

Occupant experience– Questionnaires, focus groups and interviews to examine how the

occupants interact with the building

Financial analysis– Cost benefit analysis

Further Information

• South East of England Development Agency Example Checklist on line - http://www.sustainability-checklist.co.uk/index-17.htm

• BREEAM and Ecohomes www.breeam.org/

• Regional Sustainablity Checklist for developments www.wwf.org.uk/filelibrary/pdf/regsust_checklist.pdf