This seminar series is organised by the Smart and Sustainable Built Environment Working Group (W116) of the CIB. Seminars introduce research in smart and sustainable built environment fields and highlight key challenges and alternative approaches.
If you have questions or would like to suggest a seminar, please contact: Dr Jeremy Gibberd via email [email protected].
Sufficiency
Abstract
The concept of ‘sufficiency’ involves avoiding and reducing demand for energy, materials, land, water, and other natural resources, while delivering well-being for all within planetary boundaries, and aligns with the concept of ‘a fair consumption space for all’ to meet 1.5oC lifestyles. Involving restraint and moderation, it can be differentiated from efficiency, which boosts productivity and satisfies human wants by providing more commodities. Sufficiency is related to circularity, but this often fails to reduce material throughput amid continued economic growth.
He collaborates with Dr Yamina Saheb, IPCC lead author on mitigation, who stated: “the unequivocal role of human activities in global warming is unlikely to be reduced unless sufficiency is made a primary principle in climate change mitigation scenarios and policies”. She argues that sufficiency should take precedence over efficiency and renewables within a sufficiency-efficiency-renewables (SER) Framework.
The built environment is a key priority in introducing sufficiency policies and practices, due to its substantial influence on global emissions, as well as conserving biodiversity and achieving the SDGs. The lack of sufficiency policies, though, has led to an increase in floor area per capita, with increased embodied and operational emissions outpacing other gains in emission reductions. A sufficiency-focused approach to the built environment involves questioning and managing demand, meeting functional needs with ‘build nothing’ and ‘build less’ solutions, and repurposing existing assets.
Presenters
David’s research focuses on avoiding demand and drastically reducing consumption and carbon in the built environment. With a background in architecture, infrastructure planning, and asset management, he played a lead role in the World Resources Forum 2021, highlighting the need to shrink resource use in the Global North while sharing with the South. After winning the Arup 2017 Global Research Challenge, he led a team that developed a ‘Cloud Platform for Reuse of Components as a Service’. David has advised the UN on eco-efficient, integrated, and inclusive infrastructure, led a course at the International Urban Training Centre, and evaluated a UN clean environment program spanning the Asia Pacific. He chairs ‘Ecological Development Union International’, a NFP association active in China and beyond. David’s recent publications include: ‘The impact of overbuilding on people and the planet’ (2021), ‘The shift from new build to renovation’ (2021), and ‘Growth in floor area: the blind spot in cutting carbon’ (2020).
Circular Built Environments
Abstract
This presentation will commence with a brief overview of the UN One Planet Network’s Sustainable Buildings and Construction (SBC) Programme. This programme is led by the Ministry of the Environment, Finland and co-led by RMIT University and UN Environment Programme. In its fourth and last two-year work plan 2021-2022, the focus areas are circular built environment and responsibly sourced materials. SBC has published State of Play for Circular Built Environment reports from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, Middle East, North America and Oceania in a Special Track in the Beyond 2020 Conference together with a Global report that drew recommendations for action. In addition, the relevance of circularity in UN 2030 Agenda Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and indicators is being continued to be mapped in a global survey to understand circular underpinnings for buildings and construction with a focus on the Global South. The objective is to provide reliable performance data for responsibly sourced building materials exploiting circularity while supporting some related SDGs across the social, environmental and economic considerations.
Presenter
Professor Usha Iyer-Raniga
Usha is Professor, Sustainable Built Environment, RMIT University and co-lead of the UN Sustainable Buildings and Construction Programme. She has ~30 years involvement across academia and research, industry and government. Usha has extensive experience in providing grounded solutions for sustainability using applied research as the means. Her current role with the UN One Planet Network is on delivering the UN 2030 agenda, arising from SDG 12. Her work focuses on accelerating sustainability in the built environment through networked policy and programmes. Usha has been invited as key note speaker and invited speaker at national and international conferences, seminars and workshops. Her teaching portfolio extends to Asian countries. She has provided expertise to APEC at an international level and to Austrade nationally, as also state and local governments. She is reviewer and scientific committee member for national and international referred journals and refereed conferences, and on the board for refereed journals.
Energy House
Abstract
Both nationally and internationally, the issue of Net Zero Homes is an increasingly challenging issue for developers and policy makers. Changes in the materials used to construct, how we construct, how we heat, how we travel and the opportunities for data collection and analysis have changed the scope of how we address this challenge. Energy House Labs at the University of Salford has a unique approach in addressing these issues through their laboratories, specifically Energy House 1 and Energy House 2.0, a recently constructed £16m building performance research facility.
Energy House 1 was constructed in 2011 as a world’s first. It is a whole UK Victorian archetype property built within an environmental chamber. The environmental control and sensoring allows detailed and repeatable experiments to be undertaken. Over the last 10 years the facility has addressed the retrofit problem in the UK, exploring the impact of everything from minor changes to homes such as installing controls or curtains, to complete insulation retrofits and heating systems. This has led to large scale research projects such as the Saint Gobain Retrofit (2013), BEAMA controls experiments (2013-2018), HAVEN (2019) exploring smart energy systems, and DEEP, which explores the impact of retrofit and air source heat pumps.
Energy House 2.0 took the principles of repeatability and control to the next stage. Completed in early 2022, this facility allows for the construction of up to 2 domestic properties in one of two chambers, which can replicate the weather of 95% of the populated planet. Over the next year the team will be exploring the future of Net Zero Homes. The challenges of low impact materials, smart homes, modern methods of construction and useability will all be explored in light of regulatory changes in the UK, as well as wider international trends.
Professor Will Swan
Professor Will Swan is the Director of Energy House Laboratories (EHL) at the University of Salford, where he has led the energy and buildings research for more than10 years. The labs include the award-winning Salford Energy House, a whole Victorian house in a climate-controlled chamber, the Smart Meters Smart Homes Lab and the forthcoming £16m Energy House 2.0. Will is a member of a number of groups concerning retrofit and energy efficiency of buildings; he was one of the founder members of the Building Performance Network, is Chair for the Low Carbon Buildings Challenge Group in Greater Manchester, and a member of the Retrofit Task Force.
