Sustainable building
The references below are arranged alphabetically by publisher. Links to relevant websites can be found towards the bottom of the page.
Click on the Sustainable building heading in the Popular topics box on the right of the page for other references.
See also Topics: Construction
This page was updated on 17 July 2014.
Better Building Partnership
Sustainability benchmarking toolkit for commercial buildings: Principles for best practice. January 2010 (30pp)
BioRegional
Pushing reuse: Towards a low-carbon construction industry
2009
British Property Federation
Heat and Energy Savings Strategy: A response by the British Property Federation
2009
British Property Federation
June 2010
Cambridge City Council
Sustainable design and construction
June 2007
Carbon Trust
December 2009
Construction Products Association
An introduction to low carbon domestic refurbishment
June 2010
Corporation of London
Tall buildings and sustainability
March 2002
Department for Business, Innovation and Skills
Low Carbon Construction Innovation and Growth Team: Final report
Autumn 2010
Department for Communities and Local Government
Building a greener future: Towards zero carbon development (Consultation)
December 2006
Department for Communities and Local Government
Building a greener future: policy statement
July 2007
Department for Communities and Local Government
Zero-carbon homes: Impact assessment
May 2011
Energy Saving Trust
Domestic low and zero carbon technologies: Tecnical and practical integration in housing
October 2010
Energy Saving Trust
Sheffield eco-terrace: A refurbishment case study
August 2010
Energy Saving Trust
February 2010
European Commission
The fundamental importance of buildings in future EU energy saving policies
July 2010
Federation of Master Builders
Transforming the UK’s existing housing stock
July 2008
Green Alliance
Housing a low carbon society: an ODPM leadership agenda on climate change
May 2006
Housing Forum
Sustainable refurbishment of the existing housing stock: interim Working Group report
April 2009
House of Commons, Communities and Local Government Committee
Existing housing and climate change
March 2008
King Sturge
European property sustainability matters: Retro fitting buildings and places
2011
King Sturge
Property sustainability matters: the practical reality
2008
London Climate Change Partnership
Your home in a changing climate: Retrofitting existing homes for climate change impacts
February 2008
NHBC Foundation
Climate change and innovation in house building: Designing out risk
August 2007
NHBC Foundation
The Code for Sustainable Homes simply explained
June 2009
NHBC Foundation
A practical guide to building airtight dwellings
June 2009
NHBC Foundation
A simple guide to Sustainable Drainage Systems for housing
July 2010
NHBC Foundation
Zero carbon homes: an introductory guide for housebuilders
February 2009
Olympic Delivery Authority
Development and use of BREEAM for Olympic Park venues
November 2011
Reading Borough Council
Sustainable design and construction: Supplementary Planning Document
2011
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
Breaking the vicious circle of blame: Making the business case for sustainable buildings
June 2008
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
Can building codes deliver energy efficiency? Defining a best practice approach
June 2008
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
Green value: Green buildings, growing assets
2005
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
Towards a low carbon built environment: A road map for action
February 2009
Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
Transforming existing buildings: The green challenge
March 2007
Stephen George & Partners
The Stephen George & Partners guide to building materials and the environment
2010
Strategic Forum for Construction & Carbon Trust
Carbon: Reducing the footprint of the construction process
July 2010
Sustainable Development Commission
Building houses or creating communities: A review of Government progress on sustainable communities
May 2007
Sustainable Development Commission
‘Stock take’: Delivering improvements in existing housing
July 2006
Sustainable Development Commission
Sustainable buildings: The challenge of the existing stock
July 2005
Sustainable Housing Action Partnership (SHAP)
Moving beyond Decent Homes Standard 2009: Creating the low carbon standard for social housing
October 2009
Taylor Wessing
Behind the green facade: Is the UK development industry really embracing sustainability?
January 2009
Technology Strategy Board
Design for future climate: Opportunities for adaptation in the built environment
June 2010
Town & Country Planning Association
2006
UK Green Building Council
Biodiversity and the built environment
March 2009
UK Green Building Council
Establishing the ground rules for property: Industry-wide sustainability metrics
October 2010
UK Green Building Council
October 2008
UK Green Building Council
Making the case for a Code for Sustainable Buildings
March 2009
UK Green Building Council
February 2010
United Nations
March 2010
University of Westminster
Retrofitting Soho: Improving the sustainability of historic core areas
December 2008
WWF
Building a sustainable future: UK house builders’ progress in addressing sustainability
August 2007
WWF
Reinventing the city: Three prerequisites for greening urban infrastructures
2010
Yorkon
A guide to improving the whole life value of a building
June 2010
Yorkon
A practical guide to BREEAM: An essential tool for sustainable development, design and construction
2010
Zero Carbon Hub
Carbon compliance for tomorrow’s new homes: A review of the modeling tools and assumptions
July 2010
Websites
AIMC4 is a unique partnership of companies, created to research, develop and pioneer the volume production of the low carbon homes for the future. The AIMC4 consortium will develop and apply innovative materials, products and process to meet the Governments Code for Sustainable Homes, Level 4 energy performance, through innovative fabric and building services solutions only thus embedding reduced carbon emissions within the performance of the dwelling.
The Alliance for Sustainable Building Products
The ASBP is a cross sector, not for profit organisation, comprising, building product manufacturers and distributors, specifiers, designers, contractors, public interest and sustainability organisations, academics and other building practitioners. It is committed to accelerating the transition to a high performance, healthy and low carbon built environment by championing the increased understanding and use of building products that meet demonstrably high standards of sustainability.
Association for Environment Conscious Building
The AECB is a network of individuals and companies with a common aim of promoting sustainable building. It brings together builders, architects, designers, manufacturers, housing associations and local authorities, to develop, share and promote best practice in environmentally sustainable building.
BAM aspires to develop a business that has zero impact on the environment through a cradle to cradle approach that guides how they design, construct and manage their buildings.
The Barnsley College Think Low Carbon (TLC) Sustainable Centre
This Centre aims to create an internationally recognised centre of excellence in low carbon innovation. The project, supported by EU-funding, will facilitate research, development and skills for environmental technologies, enabling businesses to exploit emerging markets in this sector. The facility will consist of two open plan practical workshops and four multi-functional rooms that can be used for open days, seminars, advice and guidance or research. The Centre will provide a demonstration area for local planners, architects and builders to explore new products, services and materials. It will enable people to experience the importance of new technologies and their relevance to the future job market. It will also offer workforces the opportunity to gain knowledge of fitting and maintenance to help homeowners and businesses to reduce their energy consumption.
The Better Buildings Partnership (BBP) is an exclusive collaboration of London’s leading commercial property owners and allied organisations, supported by the Mayor of London and the London Development Agency. Their aim is to develop solutions to improve the sustainability of London’s existing commercial building stock and achieve substantial CO2 savings in support of the Mayor’s target of 60 per cent by 2025.
BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) is the leading and most widely used environmental assessment method for buildings. It sets the standard for best practice in sustainable design and has become the de facto measure used to describe a building’s environmental performance. This is the website pertaining to the BREEAM assessment method for non-residential buildings. All non-residential buildings will have to reach either an Excellent or Very Good standard, and guidance is provided for offices, retail units, schools and industrial units, with bespoke versions available for other building uses.
BREEAM Communities is a standard that helps developers, local authorities and design teams improve, measure and certify the sustainability of developments at the neighbourhood scale and beyond. It covers economic, social and environmental sustainability – assessing issues like housing provision, transport networks, community facilities, and economic impact. It helps make the concept of sustainable development tangible, by demonstrating sustainability on large planning applications. Updated in 2012, BREEAM Communities is now simpler, less prescriptive, and better aligned with the planning process. The scheme can also be applied internationally through a simple bespoke international process.
BAM Construct has launched a new microsite to report on and share its experience and knowledge of sustainability in the built environment. The site, launched to coincide with World Green Building Week 2013, is designed for both BAM employees and the wider industry, and focuses on six key performance indicators, sustainable design, carbon, resource efficiency, sourcing responsibly, community, and health and wellbeing. It also includes information on BAM’s sustainability progress and its own industry insights.
Build Energy Ltd is a multidisciplinary environmental consultancy. Its clients range from self-builders, home owners and architects, through to large M&E and construction groups. It provides assessment and consultancy against UK and global environmental standards like BREEAM, Code for Sustainable Homes and Ecohomes as well as offering a full portfolio of compliance services for both domestic and non-domestic schemes.
Building4change, launched by the BRE Trust in 2009, is an online knowledge hub, dedicated to sustainability issues in the built environment.
Buildings Performance Institute Europe
The Building Performance Institute Europe (BPIE) is dedicated to improving the energy performance of buildings across Europe, and thereby helping to reduce CO2 emissions from the energy used by buildings. BPIE acts both as an international centre of expertise on all aspects of energy efficiency and energy performance in European buildings, and as the European centre for a Global Buildings Performance Network created by ClimateWorks. Its main focus lies on policy analysis, implementation and dissemination of knowledge through studies, policy briefs and best practices.
Build with CaRe (Carbon Reduction) aims to mobilise all forces in order to make energy-efficient building design the mainstream. Local and regional authorities, universities and institutes from 10 regions in 5 countries in the North Sea Region are active in the Build with CaRe partnership. The project, which started in 2008 and concludes in 2011, is partly financed by the Interreg IV B North Sea Programme.
An industry-wide campaigning organisation that promotes greater uptake of offsite techniques by UK construction. Buildoffsite is an alliance of clients, developers, designers, contractors, manufacturers, suppliers, government, advisors and researchers.
Carbon calculator for construction activities
Despite the fact that the majority of firms know carbon reduction helps cut costs, the construction industry still accounts for 47% of total carbon emissions of the UK. To help companies make significant carbon and cost savings, the Environment Agency has launched a second generation Construction Carbon Calculator which is available free. The tool allows professionals to easily calculate and reduce the embodied carbon of materials and the emissions associated with travel, transportation, site activities and waste management. The changes incorporated into the tool include the latest data on embodied carbon in construction materials and updates to make it easier to use for professionals.
Carbon Trust: Low carbon buildings
The Carbon Trust’s Innovations department is working in two areas: refurbishments of existing stock and new low carbon buildings.
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.
Centre for Refurbishment Excellence (CoRE)
The CoRE vision is to provide a highly skilled workforce equipped with all the necessary skills to create sustainable, environmentally friendly, homes through a large scale programme of refurbishment. The Centre will showcase the latest sustainable building solutions and provide trades people with the knowledge needed to embrace the new technology and techniques necessary to help build a low carbon future for homes in the UK.
CIC Start Online aims to embed sustainable building design and refurbishment into practice. The project will assist Scottish small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to develop and test innovations at testing facilities of the project partners’ institutions. The project runs a scheme for joint industry/academic feasibility studies and a competition for free academic consultancy. An independent panel assesses applications submitted jointly by researchers and businesses for feasibility studies and applications submitted by businesses for academic consultancy.
Experienced environmental sustainability experts, covering carbon footprinting, embodied energy, life cycle assessment, circular economy, and resource efficiency. Also hosts the Inventory of Carbon and Energy database The ICE database is a free embodied energy and embodied carbon footprint database for materials.
Civil Engineering Environmental Quality Assessment and Award Scheme
This site provides all you need to know about the CEEQUAL scheme for the environmental assessment of civil engineering projects
The Code for Sustainable Homes, published in February 2008, measures the sustainability of a new home against nine categories of sustainable design, rating the ‘whole home’ as a complete package. The Code uses a one to six star rating system to communicate the overall sustainability performance of a new home. The Code sets minimum standards for energy and water use at each level and, within England, replaces the EcoHomes scheme, developed by the Building Research Establishment (BRE). The Code supports the government target that all new homes will be zero carbon from 2016 and the step changes in Building Regulations Part L leading to this.
This website can provide specialist advice on environmentally friendly building materials and systems.
This site helps make small and medium-sized (SMEs) companies aware of the changes within the construction industry and makes those changes simple to understand. This increases the opportunities open to companies to benefit from low carbon housing initiatives such as the Green Deal.
Cuttingthecarbon is a consultancy specialising in climate change and peak oil workshops for businesses, NGOs and public bodies. It aims to help businesses, NGOs and public bodies to understand climate change more clearly and to consider the implications of the coming end of cheap fossil fuels (‘peak oil’). It also organises a national conference on Passivhaus.
With over 1,400 projects benefiting from the Design Quality Indicator (DQI) in the past 11 years, and with interest in both Design Quality and Post Occupancy Evaluation on the increase, the Construction Industry Council has decided to refresh the brand and launch a new website.
Ecomerchant is the UK’s leading environmental builders merchant. Ecomerchant promotes ethical trading in low impact healthy building products.
Edie (Environmental Data Interactive Exchange): Green buildings
Edie (Environmental Data Interactive Exchange) is an online resource for environmental professionals, researchers and all those with an interest in green issues, bringing together practical information and in-depth yet accessible news. Officially Europe’s biggest environmental website, Edie combines an unparalleled directory of products and services from thousands of specialised companies with an online news service reporting on the latest environmental stories as they break. As well as browsing easy-to-access online news from the UK, Europe and around the world readers can subscribe to a free weekly newsletter delivering the latest articles directly to their inbox. For in-depth analysis of the latest trends and developments in the growing environmental sector, monthly special reports offer expert opinion on the key issues of the day. The edie job centre holds a wealth of opportunities in the sector.
The European research project “EeBGuide” aims to develop metrics for the preparation of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) studies for energy-efficient buildings and building products. LCA is used to assess the environmental benefits of new technologies. The EeBGuide manuals and guidance will support LCA practitioners to obtain comparative results in their work.
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.
Encraft is an independent consulting engineering firm specializing in microgeneration, on-site renewable and low carbon buildings. Its vision is to make it easy for everyone to develop and deliver low carbon energy and building projects in the 21st century. It provides independent and impartial professional technical support to all kinds of organisation and project, and is continuously developing tools and techniques to reduce project development and feasibility costs.
Energy efficiency in buildings
Energy Efficiency in Buildings” aims at producing a roadmap for reaching energy self-sufficiency in buildings by 2050, while being economical and socially acceptable. The project looks at all aspects along the “life cycle” of new and existing buildings. While taking a global view incorporating all regions, it will put a specific focus on fast growing countries. Other relevant criteria are climate zone and level of development.
The Energy Saving Trust is the UK’s leading impartial organisation helping people to save energy and reduce carbon emissions.
Envest 2: Environmental impact analysis for buildings
Envest 2 is a software tool that simplifies the otherwise very complex process of designing buildings with low environmental impact and whole life costs. Envest 2 allows both environmental and financial tradeoffs to be made explicit in the design process, allowing the client to optimise the concept of best value according to their own priorities. Designers input their building designs (height, number of storeys, window area, etc) and choices of elements (external wall, roof covering, etc). Envest 2 identifies those elements with the most influence on the building’s environmental impact and whole life cost and shows the effects of selecting different materials. It also predicts the environmental and cost impact of various strategies for heating, cooling and operating a building.
This company specialises in the design and construction of high quality, PassivHaus and low energy buildings.
EuroPHit aims to significantly increase the quality and energy efficiency of perhaps the most common type of refurbishment: retrofits conducted gradually, over a period of years. The EuroPHit project is co-funded within the European Commissions’s Intelligent Energy Europe programme (IEE).
The Good Homes Alliance (GHA) is a group of housing developers, building professionals and other industry supporters whose aim is to close the gap between aspiration and reality by showing how to build and monitor good homes which are sustainable in the broadest sense. The GHA helps to deliver real improvement through education, research & guidance and technical support, and also engages in active policy and promotion activities to ensure that market conditions encourage and incentivise developers to take a more sustainable approach.
A campaign, launched in April 2009, promoting a nationwide programme of green refurbishment. This campaign is promoted by Grand Design magazine in partnership with the Energy Savings Trust, WWF, and UK Green Building Council.
The Green Construction Board was established in October 2011 to provide strategic leadership to the sector on this agenda as well as own and monitor the implementation of the actions in the Low Carbon Construction Action Plan. It draws together Government and industry to discuss the business opportunities (both domestically and internationally) which will be created by the transition to more sustainable economy and how best to take advantage of them.
This online edition of the BRE Green Guide to Specification has been developed alongside the printed version. The Green Guide online offers a flexible and adaptable medium and will be updated on a regular basis. The Green Guide is part of BREEAM (BRE Environmental Assessment Method) an accredited environmental rating scheme for buildings. The Green Guide contains more than 1500 specifications used in various types of building. It examines the relative environmental impacts of the construction materials commonly used in six different generic types building including: Commercial buildings, such as offices; Educational; Healthcare; Retail; Domestic; and Industrial.
The Green Register of Construction Professionals
The Green Register is one of the UK’s leading organisations promoting sustainable building practices across all disciplines of the construction industry through unique training and events.
Based in Sheffield, the Green Roof Centre was founded by the University of Sheffield, Groundwork Sheffield and the four surrounding local authorities (Barnsley, Doncaster, Sheffield and Rotherham). The Green Roof Centre operates with partners nationally to demonstrate the potential of green roof uptake in the UK. The primary aim is to promote green roof development and implementation through research, education, demonstration, information and technology transfer.
This site contains: a directory of sustainable construction products available in the UK; compares the environmental impacts of materials; and holds a series of briefing notes which examine the basics of designing with both new and traditional materials.
Green Street, is a resource hosted by Sustainable Homes, which aims to help with improving the environmental performance of homes. Green Street contains detailed information and advice on why and how to take action to improve your homes in the following areas: energy efficiency; water efficiency; material use; waste reduction; health and wellbeing; residents’ lifestyle; and the overall environmental improvement of the housing stock. Information can be accessed by house type (period terrace, period conversion, tenement flats, semi-detached, low-rise flats, high rise, modern terrace and system flats), or more generally on any of the above issues. The resource also collates information on: standards, costs, funding and procurement. It also highlights real action through case studies.
Greenbuild News provides built environment professionals with a source of news, features, expert comment and case studies on all aspects of sustainable building. With topics to include housing, non-domestic buildings, renewable energy, materials and much more, Greenbuild News offers up-to-date content and a free newsletter.
Based on this concept and to make sustainable construction easier to understand, evaluate and apply, the Holcim Foundation and its partner universities have identified a set of five “target issues” for sustainable construction, which serve as the basis for the adjudication process of the Holcim Awards and as a framework for other activities of the Holcim Foundation.
The company’s vision is to deliver world class sustainable solutions for the built environment. Services provided include building services engineering; energy and sustainability; and building structures and surveying.
The Hyde Group is a social business, providing affordable rented homes for people excluded from the housing market. The Group works mainly in London and the South East of England where we own or manage over 40,000 homes providing housing, regeneration and related services to more than 120,000 people.
International Passive House Association
In order to advance the Passive House Standard worldwide as well as the quality for which it stands, the Passive House Institute, Darmstadt Germany founded the International Passive House Association (iPHA). iPHA is an independent and objective network of Passive House stakeholders including architects, planners, scientists, suppliers, manufacturers, contractors and property developers. It works to promote the Passive House Standard and foster a greater public understanding of its significance. Encouraging the exchange of Passive House knowledge, iPHA communicates with the media, the general public and the entire range of construction professionals. The iPHA’s web presence aims to help you: learn about completed Passive House projects and resident experiences; find experts and partners for your own Passive House project; exchange your experiences and questions with architects, engineers, scientists and property developers; and profit from information on the advantages of the Passive Houses Standard as well as the most up to date Passive House news.
International Sustainability Alliance
This global property alliance is setting benchmarks for the environmental performance of commercial buildings. A set of demonstration benchmarks for buildings across Europe has been formulated by the International Sustainability Alliance (ISA), a new group of real estate owners, occupiers, developers and funders, working with BRE Global. ISA founder members, including Redevco, Barclays, ING REIM and BNP Paribas Real Estate, have provided data from around 100 buildings across Europe to produce pan-European benchmarks, and more specific metrics for seven countries and two sectors, office and retail. The benchmarks are based on key performance indicators (KPIs) that quantify a building’s impact in terms of energy, CO2 emissions, waste and water.
Inventory of Carbon and Energy
Embodied energy is the amount of energy consumed to extract, refine, process, transport and fabricate a material. It is often measured from cradle to (factory) gate, or cradle to site (of use). Likewise, embodied carbon footprint is the amount of carbon (CO2 or CO2e emission) to produce a material. The Inventory of Carbon and Energy (also know as the ICE database) is a free database for building materials. The ICE database is available as a a hard copy book version available from BSRIA, or as a free download, in excel format, by subscribing to the Circular Ecology mailing list.
Let’s speak sustainable construction
Architects’ Council of Europe and the European Concrete Platform have worked together on a freely available web-based tool, the aim of which is to bring to an end the confusion that reigns when authorities, policy-makers, consumers, planners and the construction industry as a whole are talking about sustainable construction. This tool is also designed to contribute towards facilitating knowledge transfer, and thus to the achievement of intelligent energy in cities. The tool is available in wiki format.
A repository of UK low-energy building information created to help inform the planning and development of low energy new build and refurbishment projects
The Low Impact Buildings Innovation Platform, under the auspices of the Technology Strategy Board, aims to help the UK construction industry deliver buildings with a much lower environmental impact. The Technology Strategy Board launched the Low Impact Buildings Innovation Platform in May 2008, with funding committed initially until about 2012, with activity on those projects continuing beyond that. The project invests jointly with industry and other funders in projects to bring innovative solutions to this growing market, and to overcome barriers to the wider use of existing solutions. Funding is being offered to support businesses to innovate in the following six areas: design for future climate change; developing integrated, interoperable systems that enable the holistic design of buildings; better materials and components; adapting the supply chain and build process to deliver low-impact buildings quickly, economically, at scale, and with low levels of defects; management and operation of buildings: ensuring that low-impact buildings perform as they were designed to; and integrating low-carbon energy sources into low-impact buildings and the supply grid. Three additional overarching principles for selecting areas for investment are: promoting systems integration methods to encourage holistic thinking; encouraging industry to account for the interactions between buildings and their users; and realising designed-for energy savings and improved performance in practice.
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.
A joint initiative between the Energy Saving Trust, the BRE Trust and a number of industry partners to enable the practical delivery of green refurbishment through a national demonstration network.
Natural Building Technologies (NBT) is a technical sales company who lead the UK in sustainable building materials and systems for the mainstream construction market.
The Sustainability topic area on the NBS website offers you a set of resources to help you keep up to date with the fast-changing world of green construction and sustainable development. These include articles, videos, links, recommended readings and an extensive bibliography.
Passipedia constitutes a vast array of cutting edge, scientifically sound, Passive House relevant articles. On Passipedia, basic Passive House information and insights are available for all, while, members of the International Passive House Association (iPHA) receive special access to the more in depth sections. Growing daily, Passipedia is the tool with which new Passive House findings from around the world are being presented, together with the highlights of almost 20 years of PHI research on Passive Houses, often for the first time ever in English.
The Passive House Institute (PHI) is an independent Research Institute, engaged in the research, development and promulgation of building concepts, building components, planning tools and validation for particularly energy efficient buildings.
A new UK advice and lobbying body has been launched as guardian of Passivhaus standards in the UK. The Passivhaus Trust is affiliated with the Passivhaus Institut in Germany via the International Passive House Association (IPHA). It will focus on research, education and policy campaigns around the application of Passivhaus in the UK. Founder members include Willmott Dixon, Hastoe Housing Association (which has a rural project in progress), Bramall Construction, Bere Architects, Architype, ECD Architects, Knauf Insulation, Isover, and Internorm Windows UK.
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.
Pinpoint: sustainability resources, training and tools
Launched in early March 2013 Pinpoint is an independent, free to access online platform. It points built environment professionals towards the best available resources to help make projects, organisations and products as sustainable as possible. Covering all sustainability topics, right across the built environment, it also provides peer reviews from industry professionals and allows users to upload resources themselves.
PROMETHEUS was a multi-disciplinary EPSRC funded project. The main aims of the project were to: Create a methodology for the creation of probabilisitic future reference years using the output of UKCP09; Using physics based models identify the problems new buildings face as a result of ; Help the building sector adapt to the challenges of climate change. The project ran from 2008-2010.
The aim of the PUrE Intrawise consortium is to develop an integrated decision-support framework for more sustainable management of indoor pollution associated with the provision, conservation and use of energy in buildings. The framework will be applied to a number of case studies that will compare environmental, health and economic implications of the principal options for future home energy provision as an aid to policy development.
RIBA launched a Sustability Hub in October 2010, designed to develop and grow into the one-stop portal for sustainability information for architects, students and educators alike. The goal is to engage the architectural community with sustainability as an inspiration for design, and to pitch green design as an emerging business opportunity.
Scottish Ecological Design Association
Scottish Ecological Design Association (SEDA) seeks to promote: the design of materials and products, projects and systems, environments and communities which are benign to living species and planetary ecology; professional and consumer awareness of ecological design and choices; and interdisciplinary contacts between those who wish to incorporate ecological concerns into their creative and productive work. SEDA encourages people to share knowledge, skills and experience.
Skanska is one of the world’s leading construction groups with expertise in construction, development of commercial and residential projects and public-private partnerships. In May 2009, Skanska was named as the UK’s fourth Best Green Company, across all industry sectors by the Sunday Times. The above link will provide access to the sustainability wheel, providing details of projects undertaken, highlighting the company’s approach to sustainable development.
Sust. Sustainability in Architecture
This is Scotland`s first dedicated web site to sustainable design in architecture and the built environment. The Sust. initiative was developed in collaboration with the at the (then) Scottish Executive in 2002 in order to raise public awareness of sustainable design and the contribution it can make in delivering a sustainable future, and improve an understanding of sustainable design for those commissioning new buildings.
Wolseley UK, a supplier of construction producs, opened the UK’s first commercial showcase for sustainable building products and construction methods in April 2008. The Wolseley Sustainable Building Center, at Leamington Spa in Warwickshire, aims to accelerate the UK building industry’s move to embrace sustainable construction. The Center enables all involved in construction – from architects through to builders – to experience the latest technologies and the widest range of sustainable, energy-efficient and recycled building products.
Sustainable Building Solutions
A new website by the Travis Perkins Group offers technical sustainability expertise for new build and refurbishment projects. Aimed at builders and specifiers, the Sustainable Building Solutions site includes standard construction details, technical advice and recommended products and services. The site also has a technical helpline for customers, which is managed by BRE
This website is supported by the UK Concrete Industry and the representative trade associations and companies who have signed up to the Concrete Industry Sustainable Construction Strategy. This strategy includes the commitment to continual improvement, measurement and reporting of the performance data for the industry. The vision is that, by 2012, the UK concrete industry will be recognised as the leader in sustainable construction, by taking a dynamic role in delivering a sustainable built environment in a manner that is profitable, socially responsible and functions within environmental limits.
Sustainable Construction & Innovation through Procurement
The SCI-Network connects public authorities looking to procure innovative and sustainable solutions within their construction projects. The public sector is responsible for 40% of EU construction activity. Buildings are responsible for 36% of EU CO2 emissions.Public sector construction therefore needs to be sustainable and innovative. The SCI-Network aims to: jointly identify new construction solutions, and examine how best to encourage innovation in construction procurement. Five working groups have been set up to achieve this: Innovation in sustainable renovation; New technical solutions; Procuring innovation: procedures and methods; Whole-life costing; Financing and contracting.
Sustainable Homes Limited is a leading training and advisory consultancy operating in the field of sustainable housing.
Sustainable Housing Action Partnership (SHAP)
The Sustainable Housing Action Partnership (SHAP) is the Regional Sustainable Housing Partnership for the West Midlands with partners from social housing providers and contractors including registered social landlords, arms length management organisations and local authority housing services together with representatives from housing bodies. The aim is to provide leadership in sustainable housing in the West Midlands by promoting, researching and disseminating best practice in the environmental, social and economic aspects of sustainable housing.
Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance
The Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance (STBA) is a collaboration of not for profit organisations that acts as a forum for sustaining and improving traditional buildings in the UK. The STBA aims to promote and deliver a more sustainable traditional built environment in the UK through high quality research, education, training and policy.
T-ZERO is a project initiated by some of the UK’s leading organisations in the fields of energy conservation and housing. It is supported by the Technology Strategy Board with a brief to develop novel ways to reduce the environmental impact from existing housing, working towards a future goal of a zero carbon built environment. T-ZERO provides an interactive web-based tool that puts energy and environmental performance expertise in the hands of the householder, housing stock manager, designer or builder.
The British Constructional Steelwork Association(BCSA) and the steel maker Corus have commissioned AECOM to lead a three year development project to generate fully detailed and costed solutions for five building types demonstrating how to achieve the three highest BREEAM ratings and meet the changes to Part L of the Building Regulations. Guidance for each of the building types (warehouses, schools, city centre offices, supermarkets, and mixed use developments) will be produced, with the first report for schools due to appear in late summer 2009. Those interested in this guidance can register to receive notification as it becomes available.
Technologies for Sustainable Built Environments
The Technologies for Sustainable Built Environments (TSBE) Centre has been established at the University of Reading with a grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC). The award will run from 2009-2018, during which time the aim is to train 50 highly skilled research engineers in an appropriate area of TSBE remits. The Centre will aid in the development of an industrial knowledge-base capable of responding to the challenges of sustainability and climate change issues by reducing the environmental impact of construction and its carbon footprint. The TSBE research portfolio is structured around the following two inter-connecting themes: Sustainable building and services systems and energy management in buildings and infrastructure systems These two main themes will be supported as necessary by the following areas of research: Climate, climate change and the built environment; Sustainable materials and structures; Innovation, design and sustainable technologies; and Informatics for sustainable technologies.
UK Green Building Council (UK-GBC)
The mission of the UK-GBC is to dramatically improve the sustainability of the built environment, by radically transforming the way it is planned, designed, constructed, maintained and operated.
UK Green Building Council Pinpoint
One of the main reasons the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) was established was to encourage the sharing of best practice on sustainability. One of our key aims is to provide a ‘first-port-of-call’ for any professional from across the building lifecycle or value chain to give them the best possible sustainability advice and guidance for their project, product or organisation. In practice this has proved a challenge, as the sheer volume of information, tools, guidance, training courses, products and services, all purporting to help create a sustainable built environment, has mushroomed over recent years. This has made navigating the sustainability landscape increasingly difficult. UKGBC’s online platform, Pinpoint, has been designed with significant input from the sector to address these issues. It provides a sustainability search function and allows users to apply further filters based on the part of the building lifecycle they are working on, the type of resources they are looking for and more. Pinpoint also encourages users to review resources themselves, helping others to see what tools, metrics and case studies would be most relevant for them. UK-GBC will act as ‘curators’ and moderators of the content provided by built environment practitioners, as well as acting as the main point of contact for further advice.
The United House Group has enjoyed continuous growth and is now one of the leading specialist housing construction companies, operating throughout London and the southeast of England. Although social housing remains at the heart our business, we have undergone radical development throughout the last 40 plus years, enabling us to anticipate and work with the many new challenges facing our industry. United House has developed an innovative eco-retrofit programme for affordable housing.
Wood for Good is the UK’s wood promotion campaign, aiming to increase the value of wood sold in the UK by promoting wood’s role in sustainable construction and in helping to mitigate climate change. It provides information to specifiers and users about how to use wood through the website, online learning and publications. It also works with partners within the industry on projects to transfer skills and knowledge in specific sectors of the industry.
The mission of the WGBC is to: ensure Green Building Councils are successful and have the tools necessary to advance; stand as the premier international voice for green building design & development; foster effective communications and collaboration between Councils, countries, and industry leaders; support effective green building rating systems; and share best practices globally.
Provides information on the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) relating to the reduction of waste in the construction industry. It includes: tools and guidance to help achieve waste reduction, recovery and re-use targets; getting the most from cobnstruction materials (aggregates, packaging, wood, glass, plasterboard, tyres, tiles, board, insulation, floor and wall coverings, and plastics); news; and events and training.
The UK Government has set out an ambitious plan for all new homes to be zero carbon from 2016. The Zero Carbon Hub is here to help you understand the challenges, issues and opportunities involved in developing, building and marketing your low and zero carbon homes.
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What’s new and Events presentations archive
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