Modern Building Services

FEATURE WORKING BUILDINGS 10 MODERN BUILDING SERVICES DECEMBER 2022/JANUARY 2023 T he battle to ‘Keep 1.5 alive’ goes on. The 200 global leaders at COP27 made several commitments but ensuring the planet’s temperature does not rise by more than 1.5C compared with pre-industrial levels remains on a knife edge. To help meet global Net Zero targets, the United Nations has set two goals for the built environment, which is responsible for around 40% of total global carbon emissions, to achieve by 2030: First, that all new and refurbished buildings must be Net Zero in operation and second, that all new and refurbished buildings must achieve at least a 40% reduction in embodied carbon. This attempts to address our most daunting challenge, which is tackling the performance of existing buildings. New buildings can be designed to meet the latest energy efficiency standards, but we replace only a tiny percentage of our building stock every year. A massive programme of refurbishments and retrofits across both the commercial and residential markets will be essential to get anywhere close to the level of carbon reductions needed to contribute to the 1.5 challenge. Carbon targets should be a powerful motivator, but in truth, expressing this in terms of energy costs is more likely to bring about change. Persuading clients to invest in energy saving measures was a challenge when energy was relatively cheap, but the tripling and quadrupling of gas and electricity prices this year has dramatically changed the argument. Complexity Many businesses face collapse simply because they don’t know how to make their premises operate efficiently and cost-effectively. Often the complexity of how buildings consume energy and contribute to carbon emissions is hard to unpick – particularly as there are so many ‘sub-systems’ to consider that consume energy in the background, like supplemental heating, lighting, and air conditioning much of which might not have been part of an initial design. Buildings have considerable ‘legacy’ systems that continue to play an important role but have not been checked and maintained so are operating well below optimal. Working out which systems are using most energy and locating ‘offending’ plant is a big step towards hitting those UN goals – and putting a huge dent in your running costs. Systems need to be identified, refurbished, or replaced, and then properly maintained – this addresses both operational and embodied carbon. However, the built environment industry has always struggled to access the targeted data it needs to help building managers make informed decisions about upgrades, maintenance, and the ongoing efficient operation of their built assets. The sector’s leading professional bodies have been wrestling with this problem for some time and are now collaborating to align the data standards that are used to manage costing, carbon and building and facilities maintenance. Building Engineering Services Association (BESA), National Building Specification (NBS), and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) along with other interested parties, including government departments, have created a roundtable collaboration forum, to standardise the way data is gathered and shared that can improve life cycle costing, carbon assessment and digital led maintenance planning. The Government Property Agency (GPA), which manages the government’s commercial estate, has been charged with delivering major efficiency improvements across its vast portfolio. The use of better building information is pivotal to this, and the GPA is working with the industry bodies to embed data standards into its estate, which can then act as a ‘living laboratory’ demonstrating the use of data alignment for specific information purposes, across the entire asset life cycle, to deliver ‘real life’ benefits. The intention is that this will create a template for whole life costing and analysis for all built assets and deliver those much-needed energy and carbon savings goals. “More than 80% of the total cost of ownership of any built asset is in ongoing operation and maintenance, but many clients find it almost impossible to get a clear handle on how much they should be spending and on what. “Many building owners and occupiers tell us they are sick and tired of not having access to complete cost and asset specific data about how their buildings need to be designed and built in a way that will optimise how they are run and maintained. They now desperately need to cut running costs, whilst make sure their buildings are safe and compliant, and get on with delivering their Net Zero carbon reduction targets” said BESA Chief Executive David Frise. Lifetime The industry bodies are working together in a roundtable data collaboration forum to drive this forward. One crucial task is addressing the ongoing problem that cost cutting decisions made at the design stage often lead to higher lifetime maintenance costs, therefore passing on the problem to clients and people further down the supply chain. The dramatic rise in energy costs has put this weakness into sharp perspective. The market for UK building maintenance is estimated at over £60 billion/per annum 1 , but the industry bodies fear that a significant proportion of that money is not being The pivotal role of the built environment in achieving global climate change goals was highlighted again at the recent COP27 gathering in Egypt, but David Frise , Group Chief Executive Officer at the Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) points out that to reduce carbon emissions, you must first find where they are coming from. Hunting for carbon “Getting this right will be vital for making our buildings more efficient, safer, healthier and to put us on the road to net zero”