Energy efficiency in old buildings

Posted on: 25 April 2014
By: mackene
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The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings [SPAB] have published a briefing which offers a summary of its interest in sympathetic energy efficiency improvements to old buildings. The recent briefing on energy efficiency intends to bring clarity to the methods, materials and debate that that will help ensure that historic buildings continue to be sustainable in the future. This includes information of SPAB’s research on the energy efficiency performance of old buildings.

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Making energy audits work for a resilient building portfolio

Posted on: 24 April 2014
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Energy audits should be carried out regularly on buildings as a part of maintenance contracts, according to a briefing paper from professionals in the sector. The paper argues that audits help to identify any increases or decreases in end use loads, which can inform the areas for further investigation and this could lead to uncovering related issues of occupant comfort, air quality and day lighting levels. 

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CBxchange

Posted on: 24 April 2014
By: mackene
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The public forum for building energy professionals, at the cutting-edge of narrowing the performance gap through sharing data, information and best practice. Its mission is to provide property professionals with the tools to understand and validate energy and carbon data to reduce the performance gap in buildings.

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Government sustainability policies: A manifesto for mitigation

Posted on: 24 April 2014
By: mackene
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With 13 months to go before the next general election, the parties are busily finalising their manifestos. Meanwhile the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warns that we must mitigate or face the worst consequences of climate change. This article from Melanie Thompson of Get Sust! reflects on the construction industry’s frustrations, vented at Ecobuild in March 2014, and concludes that if we don’t lobby hard now, we won’t get the manifestos we, and the planet, need. The article includes links to background information and presentations from Ecobuild.

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Innovations in energy management of existing buildings

Posted on: 23 April 2014
By: mackene
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The Technology Strategy Board has announced ten winning projects, set to receive overall funding of £4 million to stimulate innovations in energy management of existing buildings. Details of the projects can be found here.

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PERFORMER project

Posted on: 17 April 2014
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The main objective of the EU-funded PERFORMER project is to develop, install and finally assess energy and environmental benefits of an innovative integrated concept for the monitoring and evaluation of building energy performance, towards energy performance guarantee.

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Retrofit 2050: Critical challenges for urban transitions

Posted on: 11 April 2014
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Scaling up retrofit presents a number of critical challenges for the transition to urban sustainability. Drawing together insights from the EPSRC Retrofit 2050 project, this briefing sets out key success factors that need to be in place to deliver sustainable futures for UK cities.

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Embodied Carbon Database

Posted on: 10 April 2014
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The UK’s first publicly available embodied carbon database for buildings has been launched. The database, which has been set up by resource efficiency experts WRAP (Waste & Resources Action Programme) in collaboration with the UK Green Building Council, will for the first time provide a free and publicly available resource for building professionals to be able to benchmark their designs to a far greater extent and to more detailed comparative data than was previously available to any single company or individual.

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Moving to a new world of building systems performance. Dublin, 3-4 April 2014

Posted on: 4 April 2014
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The Chartered Institution of Building Service Engineers (CIBSE) and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers Technical Symposium (ASHRAE)  present the 4^th annual Technical Symposium. The symposium encourages the participation of both researchers and industry professionals to share experiences and develop networks. This event  explored both active and passive building systems that will shape an effective future for the built environment and maximize energy efficiency. Key topics included the design and operations of future cities and improving the operation of the built environment as well as presentations of relevant case studies. Papers and presentations are available online.

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Mainstreaming Innovation

Posted on: 31 March 2014
By: mackene
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This is a joint project of nine Scottish universities, led by Glasgow Caledonian University, which aims to reduce carbon emissions by supporting academic/industry collaboration in testing the integration of sustainable infrastructure into the existing built environment (e.g. housing, education, healthcare and other building estates). It is a follow-up of the project CIC Start Online whose focus was on sustainable building design and refurbishment. The outputs of the CIC Start Online project can be searched through Knowledge Base on the project website which will remain accessible.

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