Workstream 3: Operational energy and whole-life carbon

Workstream 3 is now moving to a new phase. Appropriate operational and whole life energy objectives are broadly agreed; how the targets can be achieved most quickly and how requisite skills can become part of everyday practice by construction professionals is the new focus.

Communicating exemplars from CIC members will play a crucial role in identifying where cross-industry action can overcome barriers of decarbonisation. Shared exemplars will help articulate industry-wide incentives needed and strengthen the message of CIC campaigns.

This workstream is co-ordinated by the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) and includes measurable deliverables divided into three priority groupings: short-term, medium term and long term.

What have participants achieved so far?

• Consolidation: General consolidation and agreement regarding new-build operational and whole life energy targets has been achieved. There is industry support in this workstream for the UK Net Zero Carbon initiative, and a willingness to participate in the current consultation, acknowledging that this standard will act as an overarching summary of the many documents produced by many organisations that cover broadly the same subject area.

Existing buildings: A cross-institution desire to shift the energy focus to refurbishment, remodelling and retro-fit of existing buildings is being realised, with actions for member institutions to be articulated.

Upskilling: Most professional institutions now offer CPD courses for their members on operational energy and whole life carbon, although not all yet form part of a core requirement. The pace of upskilling is quickening, and the skills needed for low carbon design are beginning to cascade down from a group of committed enthusiasts to the general professional membership. Finding ways of accelerating the sharing of knowledge and skills will be crucial.

Specialism: Together with the initiatives to broaden the adoption of appropriate professional operational and whole life energy skills, there is also a recognition that aspects of these subjects are highly complex and form a specialism of their own. Furthermore, the need for project champions who can provide a ‘carbon conscience’ that keeps the focus on energy management, from design inception to project completion, is now recognised. This would be captured in a Low Carbon Designer Role.

Standard documentation: Standard project documentation, such as the RIBA Plan of Work, is in constant evolution, now containing a Passivhaus overlay. Signposting to member institutions’ documentation will be explored.

Evidence: There is a growing use of design awards by a number of institutes to record operational and whole life energy project design objectives and set these against post-occupation monitoring data. A good stock of exemplars, with supporting data and evidence of achieved performance, will help designers make effective, evidence-based decisions and highlight areas where there is an avoidable performance gap.

Next steps

• Our plans for the coming year include:
  • Articulating key actions by institutions and policy makers to accelerate decarbonisation,
  • Encouraging further development of tools, procedures and simple guidance for adoption by the general membership of each professional institute and signposting these,
  • Understanding the whole life carbon implications as masterplanning and landscape professionals address updated project biodiversity requirements,
  • Encouraging developing initiatives of fire engineers that question the stock reliance on concrete and carbon rich chemicals for meeting fire safety requirements.
  • Helping, where possible, the heating, ventilating and plumbing trades to meet the growing demand for the installation of Heat Pumps and Mechanical Ventilation with Heat Recovery (MVHR).
  • Finding the best way to capture the growing guidance published by all member organisations and others. Ensuring that these are part of a freely available resource library.

Resource Library

• LETI’s Climate Emergency Retrofit Guide

The Guide shows how we can retrofit our homes to make them fit for the future and support the UK’s Net Zero targets. It defines energy use targets for existing homes and provide practical guidance on how to achieve them.

The guide is useful for architects, engineers, Local Authorities, social landlords, energy professionals, contractors and clients looking for guidance about best practice retrofit. The guide provides a quickstart guide to retrofit as well as typical house archetype examples for four primary housing type

https://www.leti.london/retrof...

• LETI Climate Emergency Design Guide

This covers 5 key areas: operational energy, embodied carbon, the future of heat, demand response and data disclosure. The methodology includes setting the requirements of four
key building archetypes (small scale residential, medium/large scale residential, commercial offices, and schools). The guide was developed by over 100 LETI volunteers over a period of 12 months.

https://www.leti.london/cedg

• LETI-CIBSE Net Zero FAQs

This guidance from LETI and CIBSE builds on the WLCN-LETI carbon definitions to try to make sure that the definitions are applied consistently and robustly in as many real-life situations are possible.

https://www.leti.london/netzer...

• Carbon Definitions for the Built Environment, Buildings and Infrastructure (Version A, May 2021)

There remains significant inconsistency with respect to the basic definitions in use
with reference to carbon and net zero carbon terminologies over the life cycle of buildings
and infrastructure. This document provides a common set of definitions. It has been put together initially by a working group within the Whole Life Carbon Network. The Definitions are based on BS EN 15978: 2011 and use the life cycle modular structure. This has been adapted for National Infrastructure definitions as per PAS 2080: 2016.

https://asbp.org.uk/wp-content...