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APC Revision > Sustainability > Flashcards

Sustainability Flashcards

1
Q

What does sustainability mean?

A

Sustainability is meeting the current needs of the planet without compromising the needs of those in the future.

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2
Q

What is BREEAM?

A

Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology. BREEAM is a suite of validation and certification systems for the built environment. You can be certified to different levels, e.g. Good, Very Good, Excellent, etc. Wide range of metrics.

We have completed many BREEAM projects. The Launchpad is Outstanding

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3
Q

What is FTSE?

A

FTSE for good green revenue % - last year was 39% of our buildings with a sustainability accreditation aka ‘green revenue’ reporting

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4
Q

What is WELL?

A

WELL is a performance-based system for measuring, certifying, and monitoring features of the built environment that impact human health and well-being, through air, water, nourishment, light, fitness, comfort and mind. It goes bronze, silver, gold, platinum. Focuses on air and water quality.

MSC - The Spine, UoB and Overbury - Paradise Circus

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5
Q

What is LEED?

A

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. A widely used green building rating system which is typically based on America. Taipei 101 in Taiwan is a tall LEED building

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6
Q

What is the Passivhaus standard?

A

Whole building approach with measured targets, notably air tightness. Buntingford School

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7
Q

What is a WLCA?

A

Whole life carbon assessments. Competitors are OneClick, eTool and others being developed

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8
Q

What is EnerPhit?

A

Relaxed passivhaus standard for retrofit projects where they cannot meet existing passivhaus targets due to conversation or existing architecture issues

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9
Q

What are the Paris Agreements?

A

Legally binding international treaty on climate change adopted at COP21 in 2015. The Agreement is a long-term temperature goal of 1.5 degrees which should not be exceeded if we do not wish to experience substantial impacts of climate change. According to the UN environment programme, we are ‘significantly off track’ – possibly to 3 degrees as stated in some sources

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10
Q

What are the UK’s net zero targets?

A

Climate Change Act 2019 - All UK emissions are set to be net zero by 2050, Scotland by 2045, Wales (public sector only) by 2030 under the 2021 Net Zero Strategy – GHG emissions have to be equal to those removed from the atmosphere

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11
Q

What is COP?

A

COP (conference of the parties) – COPs happen every year, reviewing everything which has been submitted by the parties. The most recent, COP28 was held in Dubai.
The key takeaways were dedicated funds for damaged to vulnerable countries, discussing nature conservation and signalling ‘the beginning of the end’ for fossil fuels.

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12
Q

What are the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals?

A

17 goals in total. In Construction, we focus on goals, such as 9 ‘infrastructure’, 11 ‘sustainable cities and communities’, 12 ‘responsible consumption and production

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13
Q

What is the SKA?

A

Environmental rating for commercial fit outs made by RICS. It had a transfer recently. Targets energy, carbon waste, wellbeing, etc.

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14
Q

What is the IPCC?

A

The IPCC is an environmental body of the UN. Its role is to advise scientifically on climate change/human activities. IPCC reports are released every 7 years, latest was 2023 and we’re off track. We’re already at 1.1 degrees which is unprecedented, ecosystems are collapsing and we need finance to scale solutions. By 2100, we’ll hit 3.3 degrees on current trajectories

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15
Q

What are science based targets?

A

Science Based Target initiative is a collaboration where companies sign up to get their climate targets verified. MSG’s are from a 2019 baseline:
Overall target for MSG is to be net zero across our value chain by 2045.
Reduce scope 1 and 2 by 60% by 2030 then 90% by 2045
Our scope 3 emissions need to be reduced by 42% by 2030 and 90% by 2045
PPN is only mandatory scope 3 categories – what we pay for directly

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16
Q

What is a Just Transition?

A

How we can move from a high carbon economy to a low carbon economy in a fair way. For example, decarbonising the steel industry. Port Talbot example

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17
Q

What sustainability accreditations does MSC have?

A

MSC has CPD rating of an A for four years running. B in timber and a C in water security so that’ll be the next big thing for us to tackle

MSCi AAA

18
Q

What is the UKGBC 5 step pathway to help businesses achieve net zero?

A
  1. Establish net zero scope
  2. Reduce construction material impacts
  3. Reduce operational energy use
  4. Increase renewable energy supply
  5. Offset as a last resort
19
Q

What is an EPC?

A

An energy performance certificate is a legally valid document which provides an energy efficiency rating in relation to a property’s running costs. Valid for 10 years

20
Q

When is an EPC required?

A
  • All commercial properties over 50sq
  • When newly built, sold, rented or refurbished
  • If the property is to be marketed
20
Q

What are the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards (MEES) 2015?

A

MEES sets a minimum energy efficiency for domestic private rented properties
* Unlawful to rent a property with an EPC below E – various exemptions to this (this will rise to C by 2030)

21
Q

How did you participate at the Footprint+ sponsorship of the stage?

A

I helped organise a chair for one of the panels, and I stood on the stand and discussed circular economy and CarboniCa with people who approached me.

22
Q

What have you learnt at conferences which is relevant to your job role?

A

Recently I attended the ASBP Healthy Building conference in London where I learnt about biophilic schools from the DfE (public spaces, outdoors, greenery). St Mary’s School in Derby

How we could connect this with regenerative design principals

23
Q

What is the Climate Action Task Force?

A

Internal group of people passionate about sustainability. I was in the resource efficiency group where we look at how teams can practically reduce waste e.g. plasterboard. Outcome will be a waste toolkit for our teams

24
Q

What did you learn on the BREEAM associate course?

A

There are many different BREEAM schemes (international, domestic, fit out, infrastructure) and a rating system of Good, Very Good, Excellent, Outstanding, etc

25
Q

What did you learn on the CISL course and how is this relevant to your role?

A

How we can move from a high carbon economy to a low carbon economy in a fair way. Relevant as there is a lot of change happening in the industry, for example, decarbonising the steel industry. Port Talbot example

26
Q

What is carbon dioxide equivalent? Is it really equivalent?

A

CO2e is a way to describe all GHGs in a common unit according to the GWP. Ongoing debate as many GHGs are more toxic

27
Q

What are the three pillars of sustainability?

A

Social, economic and environmental

28
Q

How do you keep up to date with sustainability topics?

A

Attend conferences, forums, CPD and subscribe to newsletters like the guardian

29
Q

How do you complete a WLCA?

A

I use CarboniCa. I have done this for the regenerative twin project, the original Whitmore high school and the ICCE project. Depending on the stage, I would use a bill of quantities. I would do an As Designed and an As Built

30
Q

How did you make the recommendations section of the report? How did you quantify them?

A

The recommendations section of the CarboniCa report goes through all materials that the user has entered into the building and suggestions lower carbon alternatives with similar engineering qualities. Only been done for insulation and cladding so far.

I quantified them by using the standard carbon factor for each material and generating a lifecycle impact figure which is kgCO2e per m2 GIA. I then entered the data into an excel and created a calculation whereby the original and alternative are subtracted to making a saving.

I provided this sheet to the software engineers to write into CarboniCa’s code. The way this looks in CarboniCa is there is the category, description of current material, written recommendation, then a column which states ‘if you were to change to’ then it provides the options with potential savings per m2 and a total tonnes saving too.

Examples might include if you have terracotta tiles, you can change to slate tiling, locally sourced stone, or locally sourced reclaimed brick and all figures would be shaded green (darker green is higher).

31
Q

Have the Wirral Growth project accepted your recommendation?

A

No but a recommendation they did follow was to utilise a high percentage of EAF for the frame which saved around 900 tonnes of carbon – this was an open discussion and not in the recommendations

32
Q

How did you automate the recommendations logic?

A

This has been done in Excel. There is a tab which contains all data for kg/m2 surface area of the material. This pulls through to the calculations tab where if I select drop down options for the materials, it pulls through the data and runs calculations

33
Q

CarboniCa is aligned to the RICS Whole Life Assessment for the built environment standard. Will it be updated?

A

The RICS Standard allows for consistent and accurate measurement. The team is in the process of updating CarboniCa to the newly updated standard. We were third party validated by Arup in 2020 and now we have until July to re-update

Updates include modelling an external works category, demolition and a contingency factor.

34
Q

What is operational carbon?

A

Operational carbon is the carbon emitted in the energy and water consumption over the lifecycle of the building, for example your heating, ventilation, and lighting.

35
Q

What is whole life carbon?

A

Whole life carbon is embodied carbon and operational carbon. We model these 3 separately in our output report so the user or client can see directly where the carbon is in their building

36
Q

What is embodied carbon?

A

Embodied carbon is the material related emissions over the entire lifecycle of the building, for example your manufacturing of materials, and transportation.

37
Q

What are the BS EN 15804 lifecycle modules?

A

A1-A3 is the raw extraction, transport and manufacturing of raw materials
A4-A5 is the transport of materials and the construction processes
B1-B7 are the in use stages so maintenance, repair, refurbishment then also operational water and energy
C1-C4 are the end of life phases so demolition and waste processing
D is the recovery or re-use of materials and this benefit beyond the system boundary

38
Q

What are the changes in the new RICS WLCA PS?

A

Published in 2023
Main changes include addition of module A5.1 for demolition, new waste rates, new design life cycles, new reporting format in Excel, new assumptions for concrete, uncertainty factors (15, 6, 0%)

39
Q

Highlights of the RICS Sustainability Report 2023?

A

Barriers to adoption of sustainability:
1. Upfront cost
2. Uncertainty over material performance
3. Lack of returns
4. No common standards or definitions

40
Q

What are the RICS doing as a result of their Sustainability Report 2023?

A
  • Update RICS WLCA standard
  • More CPD on sustainability
  • The International Cost Management Standard (ICMS 3) is a global framework for cost and carbon reporting
  • Emphasis on circular economy

Interesting - 43% of respondents to the RICS survey do not measure embodied carbon on their buildings!

41
Q

What is NABERS?

A

National Australian Built Environment Rating System
NABERS UK measures energy efficiency between the design and in-use energy performance of offices

APC Revision (21 decks)

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