Spring development+infrastructure issue • 2018
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Autumn 2018
development+infrastructure brownfield | EIA | flooding | ecology | sustainable building SPECIAL ISSUE:
Sustainable housing and development
brownfield | EIA | flooding | ecology | sustainable building
SPECIAL ISSUE:
SPECIAL ISSUE:
Sustainablehousing housing Sustainable and development development and
Buildings and energy efficiency: recovery ahead? The challenge of electric vehicle infrastructure
Insulation in focus Changing our spaces to tackle the housing crisis
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development+infrastructure
Contents Sustainable housing SPECIAL ISSUE:
andissue development Autumn • 2018
4 Building energy efficiency – on the road to recovery?
To what extent is Government policy making our buildings more energy efficient?
8 Charge of the EV brigade
How prepared is UK infrastructure for the electric vehicle revolution? We spoke to Ramboll’s Adam Selvey.
11 Greening our cities
Green roofs... Living walls... Intelligent tree planting... Plant by plant, our cities are getting greener.
15 Line your pockets: the UK insulation market in focus
How much has the UK insulation market changed postGrenfell and what innovative materials are being developed?
19 Thinking outside the boxland
Could we turn our cities’ underused industrial sites into thriving mixed use neighbourhoods?
21 Going from A to ZED Pod
A novel, sustainable housing solution – coming to a car park near you.
24 New spokes for the big wheel
How do we build better urban spaces? Eoin Redahan found out at Building Sustainable Towns and Cities.
27 Service provider directory Cover photo: alphaspirit
contents / editorial
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From the editor
T
wo thirds of existing policies designed to meet carbon budgets are at risk of under-delivery by 2030, not least due to uncertainty over key EU policies (p4). Home insulation upgrade rates have plunged 95% since their peak in 2012. Insulation rates are at their lowest for 10 years. Seasonally adjusted building emissions have risen for the second successive year. But it isn’t all bad news. The energy efficiency in buildings sector looks like it could finally be emerging from decline after a litany of policy reversals, rallying around the Clean Growth Strategy with innovation and smart energy technology goals. But if it is to meet the net zero Paris Agreement ambition and carbon budgets up to 2050, the sector will need new policies in place and fast. There have been some wins – but they’ve been patchy. Coherent joined-up-thinking is needed to succeed in meeting targets. Predicting the future, selecting the right policy levers and financial support is particularly tricky with so many variables – and costly if the wrong choices are made (p8). This is nowhere clearer than in Electric Vehicle Strategy. The Government announced in its Road to Zero Strategy that every new home should be EV-enabled. However, if we don’t look at using load monitoring and other forms of battery storage, we could end up in a situation where we trip all domestic supplies or have to increase domestic supply with potentially larger infrastructure going into homes. The Government is relying on consumers charging at night when demand coming through the fuses is really low and demand on the UK’s infrastructure is lower. The two main stumbling blocks to meeting targets in this area appear to be policy uncertainty and resistance to change. The energy and carbon advantages of using natural materials, including hemp, sheep wool and cellulose for insulation are obvious (p15). However, many research projects on sustainable insulation materials are at least part-funded by the EU, which adds further uncertainty to their potential progress. And many of the large-scale developers are wedded to traditional technologies involving polyurethane (PUR), and polyisocyanurate (PIR) foam with their low up-front costs. Similarly with meeting the housing targets whilst keeping within the UK carbon budget requires radical change (p 19, 21, 24). Is the UK property up for the challenge? Can we change our current space standards – given the change in lifestyles and household sizes? Can we change our house production methods fast enough given the big house-builders favour traditional methods? Ian Grant Managing Editor: Ian Grant Production: Di Hand. Deputy Editor: Eoin Redahan Sales: Faye Heslin-Jones. Marketing Manager: Rebecca Nolan Events Manager: Matthew Abbott. Managing Director: Julian Rose Published by Environment Analyst, Talbot House, Shrewsbury SY1 1LG Tel: 01743 818 008. Editorial: ian@environment-analyst.com General: enquiries@environment-analyst.com © Environment Analyst 2018. All rights reserved. No material may be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of the copyright holders. www.developmentandinfrastructure.com
development+infrastructure
4 | energy policy
Building energy efficiency – on the road to recovery?
SPECIAL ISS
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The Government is rediscovering the huge potential for carbon reduction in the building sector through its Clean Growth Strategy, pressured by a welter of subsequent reports. But new policies have yet to emerge while the damaging reversals of 2015 continue to hamper progress, finds Paul Hatchwell.
Slippage
Yet progress has remained largely stagnant since 2015, when the flagship Energy Company Obligation (ECO) on energy suppliers was cut deeply, and the controversial pay-as-you-go Green Deal energy efficiency upgrade loan scheme axed.
Image: alphaspirit
A
s the UK struggles to maintain a trajectory towards 61% greenhouse gas reduction by 2030 relative to 1990, raising building energy efficiency is becoming an ever more crucial part of achieving this cost-effectively. After several years of decline, there are indications the sector is re-emerging as a Government priority amid new evidence and pressure from influential bodies including the independent advisory Committee on Climate Change (CCC) and National Infrastructure Commission. In its annual progress report in June, the CCC warned that the UK is now off-track to meet its legally binding fourth and fifth carbon budgets. Two thirds of existing policies are at risk of under-delivery by 2030, not least due to uncertainty over key EU policies directly or indirectly affecting the building sector such as energy efficiency standards for products and energy efficiency labelling of buildings post-Brexit. It highlighted building energy efficiency as a key low-cost option that had received little priority. The CCC noted that buildings accounted for 19% of UK greenhouse gas emissions in 2017, as well as 40% of total energy usage, with 83 MtCO2 of direct emissions, split between homes (77%), commercial buildings (14%) and public buildings (10%). Homes alone account for 13% of UK emissions. Overall, energy efficiency has contributed to a 21% fall in household gas consumption and a 13% reduction in electricity use since the 2004 peak, according to BEIS data up to 2017. Pedro Guertler, senior policy adviser at climate change think-tank E3G, points out this is an impressive achievement given a two million increase in the number of households, warmer homes and more appliances.
Home insulation upgrade rates have plunged 95% since their peak in 2012, largely due to a series of deep budget cuts to ECO. Solar PV installations have been in freefall, severely damaging business confidence, supply chains and jobs in these sectors. Nor have non-domestic buildings seen any significant improvement. As a result, the CCC warned in its annual progress report that seasonally adjusted building emissions had risen for the second successive year in 2017, by around 1%.
New dawn?
The Government’s ambitious, longawaited Clean Growth Strategy, launched in October 2017, has become the main framework for closing the emissions gap to 2030, though policies for delivery have yet to emerge.
Even so, one of BEIS’ Industrial Strategy Grand Challenges seeks to “at least halve the energy use of new buildings by 2030”. At first sight, that sounds less ambitious than the EU Energy Performance in Buildings Directive (EPBD) which calls for net zero buildings by 2020 and the old Zero Carbon Homes target for 2016. But it includes a wider range of building energy uses, including appliances as well as heating and cooling. The mission also looks to halve the energy costs for existing building stock, both domestic and commercial. The clean growth and grand challenge mission aims to achieve these outcomes of lower carbon, lower cost and higher quality buildings through innovation and smart energy technology. It is backed up by the £170m BEIS Transforming Construction Industrial Strategy Challenge Fund, potentially
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energy policy | 5
SPECIAL ISSUE:
Sustainable housing and development reaching £400m with private sector investment. These objectives are intended to build on aspirations in the CGS for all fuel-poor homes to be upgraded to Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) Band C by 2030, and for “as many homes as possible to be EPC Band C by 2035 where practical, cost-effective and affordable”. The CGS expresses the same qualified aspiration for private rented homes by 2030, and proposes a consultation on how similar ambitions could be applied to social housing over the period. A further relevant aspiration includes improving business energy efficiency by at least 20% by 2030. This is to evolve from consultation on higher minimum standards of energy efficiency for rented commercial buildings, exploration of voluntary building standards and improved advice to smaller businesses. Both domestic and commercial building regulations covering energy efficiency will also be reviewed with a view to increasing ambition and future-proofing for low-carbon heating, taking into account the lessons from the Grenfell Tower independent safety review. As to ECO, the only substantial insulation scheme now operating, BEIS is to invest some £3.6bn “to upgrade around a million homes” and extend support up to 2028. But this will only be “at the current level of ECO funding”, so few expect a turn-around in the insulation sector’s fortunes from this alone. Another crucial route towards decarbonisation is that of the heat economy. A key issue here is the need to boost low-carbon district heating networks, which BEIS estimates could deliver up to 17% of heat demand in homes and 24% of demand in industrial and public sector buildings by 2050. The five-year £320m Heat Networks Investment Project (HNIP) launched in 2016. Since 2015, the focus has been shifting away from polluting fossil fuel combined heat and power plants to increasing use of groundwater heat pumps, low-carbon and recycled heat. New stakeholder guidance aimed at project managers, notably in local authorities, was released on 3 July. The main tool for decarbonisation of heat remains the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI), with £4.5bn funding to support innovative low carbon heat technologies in homes and businesses between 2016 and 2021. Long-delayed changes to the RHI for business effective since May have restored higher tariffs levels for biomethane and
biogas to boost decarbonisation of gas supply following industry criticism. Biomass still dominates three quarters of heat output in the RHI, but there have been concerns over sustainability of feedstock and exclusion of biomass is being considered. Heat pump uptake is seen as a priority by the CCC, but has been low due to cost, low oil prices, policy uncertainty and Brexit fallout, but more favourable tariffs, fossil fuel prices and extension of RHI to 2021 have now boosted installation rates, up around 18% in early 2017. Even so, falling numbers of certified installers will need to be tackled and market size is still nowhere near self-sustaining.
“Electrification of heat is the route to go down if you are aiming at a net zero world” Pedro Guertler, E3G
Committee reaction
The CCC progress report notes the CGS outlines an emission reduction pathway to 2032, but it is critical of the Government’s failure to develop policies needed to deliver it since the committee assessed the strategy in January. It remains critical of policy reversals on ECO, Green Deal, zero carbon homes and abandonment of carbon capture and storage, potentially needed to decarbonise gas supply. Delay in actions now such as upgrading building standards will lead to higher costs later, it points out. Insulation rates are at their lowest for 10 years, it notes, despite its cost-effectiveness and large potential. The domestic heat pump market “remains stagnant, accounting for under 1% of annual heating system sales”, and is three times lower per capita than in the Netherlands, it adds. It says risks to policy delivery in many areas will need to be reduced by new “low regret”, cost-effective improvements in building stock energy efficiency such as through heat pumps in newbuild homes from the second half of the 2020s as well as in those off the gas grid, together with low-carbon heat networks.
The CCC finds that delivery of district heat networks is broadly on track, but warns that 90% of these networks remain dependent on natural gas and only 7% use low-carbon sources. Biomethane injection into the gas grid currently contributes only 2 terawatthours, half that expected by CCC, and a long way from the eventual 5% of gas supply if full potential were to be realised. It also stresses continuing need to ensure sustainability of feedstocks in anaerobic digestion. At least a quarter of buildings need to be heated by low-carbon sources by 2030, as against just 5% in 2016, it adds. The performance gap between the actual insulation installation rate in 2017 and indicative levels that CCC believes are needed to meet 2030 climate targets is now vast. The report found that annual practicable loft insulation rates stood at just 37,000 in 2017, just 6.8% of the CCC indicative figure of 545,000. For practicable cavity wall insulation, the rate was just 70,000 out of the necessary 200,000 (35%). For solid walls, just 16,000 out of the CCC 90,000 a year indicative level (17.8%) were insulated. Given the continuing lack of policy detail, the CCC sets out a clear timetable to address energy efficiency shortcomings and opportunities in buildings. It calls for concrete policies this year to deliver EPC Band C retrofit ambition by 2035, including a new able-to-pay scheme and delivery mechanism for minimum standards in social housing. In the private rented sector, excessive exclusions on landlord contributions should be rolled back, and a trajectory set by 2019 for reaching EPC Band C by 2030, it says. The CCC calls for strengthening of newbuild standards “to ensure they are designed for a changing climate, are future-proofed for low-carbon heating and deliver high levels of energy efficiency”. These should be consulted on in 2018, and announced in 2019. A new departure in the report is its emphasis on effective regulation and the need to commit to strengthening the compliance and enforcement framework by early 2019 to reflect actual outcomes. This would enable better control of risk, transparency and audit trails, effective oversight and sanctions, it says. The report calls for concrete policies during 2018 to deliver ambitions on non-residential buildings, tightening of non-domestic private rented sector regulations. The CCC stresses the need to remove policy uncertainty on heat pumps, biomethane support for low-carbon
development+infrastructure
6 | energy policy
technologies in heat networks by announcing a clear framework for support after the RHI ends in 2021. It also calls for a shift from subsidies to capital grants for capital-intensive equipment such as heat pumps. Options also need to be kept open for deeper long-term reductions in line with the Paris Agreement by developing CCS and sustainable bioenergy despite uncertainty over whether heating of buildings will be through electrification of heat or through hydrogen fuel. These scenarios depend heavily on implementation of CCC recommendations for continued rapid decarbonisation of electricity and of the gas grid respectively.
National infrastructure
Energy efficiency of buildings also figured large in the National Infrastructure Commission’s (NIC) first five-year infrastructure assessment published on 10 July. The long-term shift from natural gas and oil to low-carbon and ultimately zero carbon heat in buildings by 2050 is seen as a priority in the assessment. In common with the CCC, it considers there are too many uncertainties as yet to make a choice between hydrogen fuel and electrification. Action now should include feasibility and safety testing of hydrogen systems, as well as greater testing of heat pumps, it says. Community level trials of hydrogen should be in place by 2021, followed by trialling in at least 10,000 homes by 2023, with parallel hydrogen production and CCS trials. But the NIC points out insulation retrofits are an immediate priority and prerequisite for deeper cuts that should deliver 21,000 improvements a week by 2020 up to 2035 to meet the Government’s minimum EPC Band C aspirations. The current rate is a mere 9,000 a week.
Commercial challenge
One of the largest opportunities for costeffective efficiency gains is in the relatively neglected non-domestic sector, covering 1.8m commercial and public buildings and accounting for 12% of emissions, according to Environment Industries Commission research released in April (EIC). Action has been largely confined to a few large, high-profile corporates concerned that portfolios and reputations could suffer from stranded assets. Apart from the recast Energy Performance of Buildings Directive specifying minimum standards and labelling including EPCs, a key policy lever here is the Minimum Energy Efficiency Standard (MEES) of EPC Band E for
Source: BEIS (2018) updated energy and emissions projections 2017; CCC analysis
SPECIAL ISS
Susta and d
Risks around delivery of buildings policies in 2030 and when the Government should implement actions to remove those risks
commercial buildings applicable to new lets as of April 2018. This has helped drive action on upgrades, but is insufficient to create the large-scale change needed. Another policy instrument intended to boost awareness through energy efficiency audits is the Energy Savings Opportunity Scheme (ESOS). The scheme is mandatory, and has helped the business case for investment, but there is at present no requirement to act on findings. Statistics from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) for the first quarter of 2017 reveal that just 8.31% of commercial buildings achieved EPC ratings of B or better, with just 0.69% achieving A or A+. Perhaps not surprisingly then, DECC’s Building Energy Efficiency Survey of 2016 identified potential for an eye-watering 39% reduction in energy use in nondomestic buildings. EIC stresses that a 20% drop in building emissions is needed to comply with the fourth carbon budget in the 2020s and that the non-domestic sector can lead the way if market failure is fixed. To drive action, it calls for a clear target to be set for UK building stock “as close to carbon-neutral as possible by 2050 at the latest” in line with CCC recommendations, and for a zero-carbon build policy for non-domestic buildings including commitment to the EU near-zero energy building principle. MEES should also be raised to Band C by 2030, and Display Energy Certificates (DECs) should ultimately be extended to all commercial properties over 250m², it adds. On ESOS, it says the scheme should force action on projects with less than four years payback, and that it should be integrated into main company reporting. The final
and arguably one of the most influential reports after that of the CCC touching on building energy efficiency in the last few months was that of the Governmentappointed Green Finance Taskforce in March. Many of its wider recommendations such as those on raising capital, awareness of stranded asset risks through improved disclosure, improved data and greener public procurement are relevant to the building energy efficiency market. Key measures proposed by the taskforce include extension of the 2035 EPC residential targets into commercial properties during 2018, to reach Band B by 2035, with operational energy rating requirements added by 2020. It calls for improved public reporting of operational ratings in non-domestic buildings, and for wider use of green mortgages with incentives.
Stakeholder reaction
The energy efficiency and green building sectors are broadly supportive of the Government’s aims in the CGS. But they share CCC’s concerns that these remain aspirational, with BEIS having declined as yet to set formal targets and timelines. This uncertainty, together with Brexit impact on regulation, and poor enforcement, continues to hold back progress. Many stakeholders are calling for a shift to operational energy use labelling, a complete overhaul of ECO into a local authority-run scheme with substantial national taxation funding, improved data, incentives and green mortgages. Looser caps on landlord contributions to upgrade of private rented sector buildings are increasingly being proposed. Guertler of E3G told Development + Infrastucture that on the non-domestic side
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energy policy | 7
SPECIAL ISSUE:
Sustainable housing and development
“it’s really about getting regulation right”. In the private rented sector, failure to keep up with the minimum energy rating poses regulatory risk that translates into reduced asset values. As a result, many larger, particularly high-profile real estate firms are going beyond minimum upgrades, anticipating tighter regulation later. He points out that the amount of renovation investment needed to fulfil the clean growth strategy of Band C for all homes by 2035 would come to £5.2bn a year from now until 2035. Currently, just £0.7bn of public sector investment is coming through ECO, leaving an investment gap of £4.5bn a year. As to going beyond Band C, he stresses there are as yet no technical cost estimates, but he points out it is also a question of decarbonising power and heat supply. But “to have a net zero economy you need to get real zero emissions [in buildings]… it needs to be the real deal… so it’s worth taking out the most reduction possible”. This is because resorting to offsets from many other sectors such as carbon-intensive industry will be more challenging and less cost-effective. Guertler considers that “electrification of heat is the route to go down if you are aiming at a net zero world”, which requires high standards of insulation for heat pumps to work efficiently. In contrast, he is sceptical of the role of hydrogen in delivering zero emissions,
as there will always be some greenhouse gas emissions leakage with large-scale production from steam reforming of methane with CCS. Increasing energy efficiency of appliances has enabled reductions in electricity demand despite an “explosion in the number of appliances” and of homes, he notes. The Association for the Conservation of Energy (ACE) recently predicted that electrical product policy will account for 47% of emissions abatement in commercial buildings by 2030, compared to just 23% from Building Regulations. But continued progress will depend on the fate of product standards after Brexit. Sam Ralph is policy executive at the Environmental Industries Commission (EIC) trade association and lead author of the EIC’s report. Given the large share of 2030 electricity savings in non-domestic buildings from products standards, he advocates continuing to use EU Ecodesign standards. Ralph believes the MEES is a crucial measure for non-domestic buildings: “Setting a base standard is the most effective way you can take in all buildings.” He also considers it should be extended to more buildings by being required at the point of sale by 2030, and that there should be a minimum Band C target for all buildings. As to current debate over the future of EPCs and DECs ahead of Brexit, Ralph
notes that EPC projected ratings “are very far off operational use, [which] suggests the methodology isn’t right”. Even so, EIC members see EPCs as important to baselines for modelling when assessing operational data. For its part, MHCLG committed to a review of these standards and building regulations in its cost optimality review, likely by the end of the year. It is understood to be looking at the Australian NABERS environmental rating system, which takes account of the kind of operational use and benchmarks this. Richard Twinn, senior policy adviser at the UK Green Building Council, is not optimistic over the outcome of the MHCLG review of cost optimality and net zero emissions plan: “I’m not expecting significant improvement in current regulations if any at all to be honest.” He suggests it may be better to focus on getting a 2030 target into regulations, preferably based on actual performance, giving time for industry to respond.
Conclusion
The energy efficiency in buildings sector looks like it could finally be emerging from decline after a litany of policy reversals, rallying around the Clean Growth Strategy. But if it is to meet carbon budgets up to 2050, let alone the net zero Paris Agreement ambition, the sector will need new policies in place – fast. bb.editorial@environment-analyst.com
Government response to CCC progress report The Government’s response to the CCC recommendations was released on 15 October. While generally supportive, its individual responses on building energy efficiency reveal new policy development mostly remains at an early stage, with deadlines somewhat vague. Substantive points include: l Policy design for reaching EPC Band C by 2030 is under
consideration, with a view to consulting “later in the year”. l An action plan and delivery mechanism towards achieving Band C retrofit recommendation for 2035, including social housing, by the end of 2018 l A commitment to publish an action plan aimed at building the market for energy efficiency, particularly for home owners, “by the end of 2018”. l The Government is looking to introduce capped contribution from landlords for efficiency upgrades l On business energy efficiency, it is reviewing consultation responses on building standards and facilitating an energy efficiency market. It “will be considering how to respond by the end of the year”, and consulting on minimum standards in early 2019. l Government’s new 43% emissions reduction target for 2020 relative to 2009/10 “potentially delivering £340m in savings” l Wider voluntary 30% emissions reduction pledge by 2020 relative to 2009/10 for the wider public sector
l Commitment to continue raising boiler standards and of
advanced heating controls
l Emphasis on need to look at wider heating technologies such
as hydraulic system design and zonal control
l Framework for heat in buildings consultation: response on
transition to low-carbon heat and future proofing “in due course”
l Consultation on strengthening new build standards in spring
2019
l Poor enforcement of EPCs will be explored following July
call for evidence and plans for funding targeted local authority enforcement pilots in private rented sector l On finance for energy efficiency, Government pointed to action to enable EPC data use for green mortgages and a call for evidence on green buildings passport l Innovation funding “to support business models that scale up energy efficiency projects from SMEs, for launch in 2019”. l Emphasis on encouraging and funding training programmes to tackle skills shortages in construction and heating
development+infrastructure
8 | EV infrastructure
SPECIAL ISS
Charge of the EV brigade
Susta and d
Electric vehicles are coming but if the National Grid is to cope with widespread home charging, we must upgrade our infrastructure and change our habits. Adam Selvey, director at Ramboll, tells us more. What is the problem with the domestic charging of EVs as it stands?
additional 3kW minimum of load onto the normal diversified load. Now, all of a sudden, we’ve increased the diversified load up to 6kW, so we’ve doubled the amount of load in theory that goes onto the transformer. At the moment, it’s a bit like the plastic bottle situation. One plastic bottle going into the ocean isn’t going to be a problem but if we all start [dumping them there], it’s going to cause problems with the ecosystem, with wildlife, and everything else. It’s the same with EVs. We’ve got a few EVs plugging into houses or local charging infrastructure but as soon as lots of these get connected, we’ll start to see big infrastructure upgrades needed.
The Government announced in its Road to Zero Strategy that every new home should be EV-enabled. However, if we don’t look at using load monitoring and other forms of battery storage, we could end up in a situation where we trip all domestic supplies or have to increase domestic supply from 100A (amps) up to 125A or 160A incomers, so there could potentially be larger infrastructure going into homes.
Is 100A to 125A much of a jump?
As it stands, you cannot pull the sorts of loads where you have a Nissan Leaf and try to cook your Christmas dinner at the same time – you can’t pull that much load through the incoming device. You’ll cut out on the meter coming into your house. Ofgem recognises this. It released a consultation document where it looks at charging you more money for pulling electricity through at peak times; so, it’s trying to use cost tariffs to change our habits. What it’s trying to say now is that you should charge at night when demand coming through your fuse is really low and also the demand on the UK’s infrastructure is lower.
Will we have to change the way we charge our devices?
At home, in the middle of the night, is where most of us stay. That’s where the vast majority of charging will be done and Road to Zero states exactly that. The Government wants us to charge our cars at night and we will be incentivised to charge our cars at night. In workplaces, it will become a benefit where people can come to work and charge their cars… [As for] motorway service stations, you’ll need it, but it won’t be the prime place and you’ll pay a lot of money to charge as we do with petrol. I think you’ll pay even more to charge in the motorway service station.
What will stop us charging when we like and having two different charging costs?
If you look at the smart meter rollout programme, the [energy suppliers] will be able to monitor your incoming supply and trend it and see whether it’s a vehicle
Adam Selvey
charger or you are cooking – because you’re not going to leave your oven on for seven hours but you could leave your car charging for this duration. So, they will know if you’re trying to get around the system of having a smart charger and a smart meter. They’ll be able to pick you out using algorithms in the system and see if you’re doing something you shouldn’t be because the Government has also said in Road to Zero that by next year all the charging points funded domestically will have to be smart chargers.
The Government says it will take steps to enable the massive roll-out of infrastructure to support the EV revolution. Just how much will be needed? Domestically, massive upgrades [are needed] because at the moment they only allow 2-3kW a house depending on whether it’s got gas or electric heating but they allow 2-3kW connected back to the transformer to your house. Even though you’ve got a 100A supply that could do 20kW, the diversified load they assume is that not every house can do 20kW at the same time. They assume that all houses added together take about 3kW and then they put that back onto the transformer. UK Power Networks has written a document that talks about heat pumps and EVs and it says that an EV adds an
Could you see technology improving a lot to reduce the strain on the UK’s infrastructure? Improvements and reinforcements will be required to UK infrastructure but I also think there will be other bits of technology, such as smart charging, that reduce our infrastructure demand… (Tesla ceo) Elon Musk stated that you could run your car off the solar panels on the roof of your house. What you do is put some PV on your house and charge your battery during the day time. When you come home you plug it into your Powerwall and take electricity for your car.
Broadly, are you in favour of the policies set out in the Road to Zero Strategy?
I’m in favour of it. Buildings will be our new fuel station… Quite frankly, that’s what the Road to Zero strategy sets out. It recognises this will be the case. I don’t think property owners or developers have yet grasped it but we will be using building supplies to serve and charge our vehicles, whether that be at home, work, or play. In Road to Zero, they talk about having super rapid charging (a 350kW charger) but that will be when you stop off at the service station and need to travel a bit further; so, you just charge your car for 20 minutes and carry on.
Which changes would you make if you were up to you?
For all new buildings, I would make it part of the planning application to have a strategy for coping with EVs over the next 20 years because we’re going from 5% of all vehicles sold at the moment (that are
development+infrastructure
EV infrastructure | 9
SPECIAL ISSUE:
Sustainable housing and development
EVs or plug in electric of some sort), to about 60% of the vehicles sold by 2030 being some form of plug-in electric. If we install in today’s view, we’ll be ripping it out in five or 10 years’ time in my opinion. So, in each building it should be part of the planning application. Also, the electrical district network operators should understand what load growths are occurring on their networks – that should be part of all new building regulations applications. The other thing is – and I’m not sure it’s in yet – but when you come to connect EVs to your buildings, you should potentially have to apply to connect. If you want to connect renewables to your building, you have to tell the local district network operator. I think you should also say what charging infrastructure you’re putting in because if you imagine everyone on your street won the Postcode Lottery, bought a Nissan Leaf, and plugged it into your house, all of a sudden you could be overloading the transformer and how would the utility companies know this? If I wanted an EV charging point in a
home, I’d make it mandatory to apply for it. The electrical authority in theory should have the right to say “no, not at this time” because they need to know the load growth on their network; and it may well be that I turn around and say, “well, I’ll plug it in and I’ll put a smart charger in and part of my charging infrastructure is that I can only charge it on Economy 7 (energy plan)”, so it might well be that I have to have an Economy 7 supply that will only turn on my smart charger on in between the hours of 12am and 7am.
Are there other strands that could help relieve the pressure such as on-street charging?
But again, all you’re doing is putting a load of pressure on the Grid. This whole thing is about the middle of winter at 6pm when we all get home… If you plug in, then you’re going to overload the transformers; you’re going to overload the UK Grid. The National Grid stated that if we don’t do smart charging, and we don’t look at charging at night and all this other technology that needs to be laid in,
we will need 8gW of generation by 2030 and 8.6gW is 2.6 Hinkley Point Cs. Are we building these two other Hinkley Point Cs? But there is capacity at night already in the generation system. It’s just you’ve got to get at it. There is the opportunity… of having PV (solar panels) on your roof and getting energy to feed your car but you’re going to need battery storage technology in your house.
How is lamppost charging supposed to work?
For every new lamppost that gets installed, the Government is talking about having a charging point in it for on-street parking. The problem is we all live in different places. Some people live in flats and… [will] have to park their cars on the street. The on-street parking people will need power [and that’s why] they’re thinking of lamppost charging. But you’ve still got to worry about how much is on the network and how much is on your transformers and how much is on the Grid. So, there may still be some form of smart charging within there – to
development+infrastructure
10 | EV infrastructure
SPECIAL ISS
Road to Zero encourage you to come home at night, plug your car in, and know you’re not coming back until the morning. It’ll turn on at night and let you charge your car. You might get people like Chargemaster who will create Apps on your phone that determine when you charge. Again, going back to the Ofgem variable tariff… The charge rate you pay will vary on the time of year and the time of day that you charge. In winter at 6pm, you’ll obviously be charged more to charge than at 6pm in the summer. In winter we’ve got our lights and heating on and we’re cooking, whereas in the summer our loads are a bit lower because you’re barbecuing and have no lights on. So, in the summer there’s available capacity. But when there isn’t available capacity, you will be penalised for charging.
Given what you know about the state of the industry and the Government’s speed of action, what does the future hold for the UK’s EV charging infrastructure?
bb.editorial@environment-analyst.com
The Government’s Road to Zero Strategy contains some lofty ambitions to decarbonise UK transport in the coming years. Here are a few of them…
50-70% of new car sales being ultra-low emission by 2030
£1.5bn pledged to support the
transition to zero emission vehicles
100% of the central Government car fleet to be ultra-low emission vehicles by 2030
£246m Government funding to research next generation battery technology £400m for the Charging Infrastructure Investment Fund £4.5m to be invested in the On-street Residential Charge-point Scheme until 2020 The Road to Zero: https://bit. ly/2u4Fh45
Photo by Dmitry Vereshchagin
They’ve got the right strategy. Everything’s about how they’re going to deliver it. You’ve also got to realise that some of this is coming from Clean Air
Zones – this is not necessarily an environmental issue, it is a public health issue. This is exactly why EVs are being done. It’s not being done to be green in the sense of reduced CO2, though in the long term it might be, depending on what the energy mix is. It’s being done to improve public health within cities because they’ve realised that the nitrogen oxide emissions of diesel are not very helpful for people’s respiratory systems and public health. So, they’ve got to do it. There’s a Clean Air Act coming in and Clean Air Zones coming in all over the place. On top of that, I understand that in the EU, the reason why all these companies are announcing that they’ll no longer sell pure combustion engine cars by 2019… I understand there is a taxation charge placed on them for the amount of emissions they create on the vehicles they sell; so, for tax benefit reasons they’re pushing it faster than Governments because they’re saying: “if I’m getting charged for the amount of vehicles I sell that’ve got NOx (or CO2) emissions of [a certain amount], I’m going to reduce that to reduce my tax liability”.
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Electric car charging in Paris, France
development+infrastructure
greening cities | 11
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Sustainable housing and development
Greening Our Cities Meadows on our roofs. Walls of green. Leafy promenades replacing concrete jungles. Our cities are slowly getting greener. Eoin Redahan reports.
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ife is getting better. You may not agree with me but the numbers don’t lie. In his extraordinary article written in Our World in Data last year, economist Max Roser noted that 94.4% of the world’s population lived in extreme poverty in 1820. By 2015, that number stood at 9.6%. In roughly that same time span, child mortality before the age of five dropped from 43% to 4% and literacy levels rose from 12% to 85%. These improvements have happened so gradually – and we are so used to reading about our ever more inventive selfdestruction – that it leaves us pining for an idyllic past that never was. Many of our cities could be viewed through a similar prism. As combustion engines hare along, as we breathe all manner of noxious fumes, and our concrete cities bake, we are right to be concerned. But let’s not forget that a killer smog descended upon London as late as 1952 and that few took the electric car seriously until quite recently. My point is that we are gradually making our cities greener; or, like a stone rolling just past the crest of hill, there is a gathering momentum. On their own, green roofs, living walls, and widespread tree planting do not make an extraordinary difference, but each plays an important role in swallowing carbon, making our cities more pleasant places to be, and bringing us closer to that elusive net zero carbon mark. So, how exactly do they do this?
All images courtesy of Dusty Gedge
The Swiss army roof
To borrow a mangled phrase that has crept into English in recent years, green roofs are in a good moment. In London, a city with a population of more than eight million, the number of green roofs has grown 17% year-on-year and they are advancing from niche into mainstream. You wouldn’t know it just to look at them, but green roofs tackle several problems that blight the modern city: they store rainwater after flash floods, reduce the heat island effect, make rooftop solar panel arrays more efficient, and improve biodiversity. Given the summer of extremes we’ve just experienced, the need to both reduce heat build-up in urban areas and soak up flash floods has become more important. According to Dusty Gedge, the president of the European Federation of Green
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Roofs and Walls Association, green roofs wait for the heavens to open with mouths open wide. “Basically, the way green roofs work – they’re waiting for water,” he explained. “So, when we get a really intense flash storm after a heatwave, they really do suck up that water and ameliorate those flash floods. That water is not going into the stormwater drainage system.” On a day-to-day basis, they also cool the urban heat island effect that soaks the armpits and beads the temples of city folk. “Most cities are nearly 60% buildings, so putting vegetation on roofs is a very good idea,” Gedge added. “During the day, the plants evaporate and that actually helps to cool the city but it also means the heat is not stored in the roofs. If it is stored, it makes nights uncomfortable for the residents of buildings. Green roofs solve this problem.” And, in case you were already tired of hearing about the other benefits, the cooling effect of these roofs also makes solar panel energy conversion more efficient.
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Green roofs planted with sedums in Stuttgart, Germany
A desert of green roofs
Sometimes, we give Germany too much credit when it comes to sustainability. You know the phrase: When you have a reputation for getting up early, you can stay in bed all day? Well, that arguably applies to Germany and green roofs. On the face of it, the north European country is an exemplar. According to the UK Green Roof Market Report 2017, it has 86,000,000m² of green roofs – more than 20 times that of the UK. However, while its mostly sedum (a genus of plant species) roofs perform a valuable stormwater mitigation function, they are lacking in another key area. “In my view, they became quite complacent,” Gedge noted. “The general way of doing extensive green roofs is to create simple sedum roof systems, which fulfil the stormwater [requirement] but don’t really fulfil the biodiversity angle… Germany has a big, big market but it’s a pretty simple approach. I’ve got colleagues in Germany who say ‘we do sedum deserts’.” In London, Gedge and his colleagues decided not to mimic the German way of building green roofs, but to follow the Swiss approach. “It was very much about biodiversity and it was more about creating more interesting ecological landscapes,” he said. “So, much of the guidance we wrote for London was based upon that Swiss model. “It’s about wildflowers and creating green roofs that deliver meaningful biodiversity. The idea was to create wildflower-based green roofs that benefit rare invertebrates… The green roof
approach embedded in guidance in London is essentially going to benefit pollinators much more than the conventional approach of the sedum system.” London is actually a very successful green roof city. As Gedge noted, Toronto is often celebrated as being a sort of green roof poster city, yet the UK capital has four times more green roofs than the Canadian city and many of those in London have been designed to promote biodiversity.
Planning for more
To a large extent, this success can be traced back to clever planning. London clearly benefited from the formation of the Greater London Authority in 2000 and used its increased powers to adopt a distinct green roof policy; and, there are signs that the Government’s devolution of powers to the regions could boost green infrastructure in the UK’s other cities. “Five of the Metro Mayors have similar powers to [what] London had in 2000 in terms of strategic planning,” Gedge noted. “I’m pretty sure most of those Metro Mayors will at some point look at having green infrastructure strategies to green up their cities and green roofs will be a very, very important part of that.” As Gedge mentioned, clever policy can bring about change. For example, councils could embrace the urban green space factor that requires developments to achieve a certain score within the planning framework. “Councils can ask for a particular
Intensive & extensive green roofs For those not in the green roof fraternity, you may hear speak of “intensive” and “extensive” green roofs. Basically, an intensive green roof is a park or a roof garden and is maintained as such. An extensive roof is one you access infrequently and requires no more than two or three maintenance visits a year. score,” he said. “If you’re in the middle of Manchester or Birmingham, the only way you’re going to get that score is if you’ve got a green roof. Planning tools used in places such as Washington DC, Seattle, Sweden, and in Berlin make sure new developments have the right amount of green infrastructure to fulfil the needs of the city. It’s quite a clever planning tool for greening cities.” Even without structural modifications, the potential for blanketing the bald building stock of the UK’s cities with green toupeés is massive. According to Gedge, 32% of London’s roofs could be greened tomorrow as they have the structure to accommodate them. Similarly, about 15% of Birmingham and Manchester’s roofs could be retrofitted tomorrow and he sees the market share expanding outside London in the coming years.
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greening cities | 13
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Sustainable “When the Metro Mayorshousing make strategic plansand and policies over the next few development years, I suspect green roofs - whether they have a specific green roof policy or adopt a greening factor tool - will start to take hold,” he said. “London will probably have 50% more green roofs in five years’ time and we’ll start to see green roofs happening more in the other cities. In 10 years’ time, I suspect the market will be 20% London and 80% in the rest of the UK. At the moment, 42% is in London.” Gedge has also noticed a change among developer attitudes towards greener properties. Younger people increasingly want to live in places that promote mental health and wellbeing. They want to be closer to nature, though it should be noted that green roofs are living things that change according to the whims of the weather. As such, people should be aware that what is pretty and green can sometimes be parched and brown. “Why should a green roof not be brown during a heatwave?” Gedge asked. “When we put something onto a roof, we think it’s got to be different than ground level. You’re not buying an artificial thing. You’re buying something that lives like the landscape.” Horticultural bling and growing things
Every now and then, architects draw up schematics of futuristic buildings – skyscrapers overflowing with vegetation, apartment blocks with forests that tier up to the sky, their walls furry and green with plant-life. Of course, the living wall is more than just the fruit of overactive imaginations. It is increasingly seen as a spoke in the green city revolution. That said, the public does love to hear about the more spectacular versions of the genre. Take the CityTree as an example. GreenCity Solutions’ part-green wall, part-park bench is allegedly capable of gobbling up to 275 trees’ worth of air pollution. Certainly, it gobbled up 275 trees’ worth of newspaper space. Dusty Gedge has nothing against such solutions but believes there are more effective ways to tackle the air pollution problem. “There are actually better systems that take out more air pollution than some of these ones that look good,” he said. “They’re kind of the IKEA of greening cities.” Nevertheless, he is a proponent of the living wall – even if he’s not crazy about the term. “We prefer to call those vertical rain gardens. Behind the green wall, rainwater from roofs is stored. That rainwater from those roofs irrigates the green wall.” Gedge believes these systems must do much more than look good. “I would say
a green wall should store rainwater, take out as much air pollution as it can, and be planted with a mixture of native and non-native plants… so they can be good for biodiversity,” he added. “A lot of the green wall market is focused is on what I would call horticultural bling, but actually, we can make green walls more sophisticated and do more things than just look pretty.” Either way, with air quality rising up the Government’s list of priorities, more and more plants that can swallow and store air pollution will find their way onto the cityscape. Plants like the humble tree.
Bark and bite
A recent University College London study suggests that we have underestimated how effective urban trees are at storing carbon by as much as 20%. Having used a tripod-mounted system to fire 300,000 laser pulses a second to analyse 85,000 trees in the London Borough of Camden, the researchers found that trees in areas such as Hampstead Heath store up to 178t of carbon per hectare - only slightly less than the 190t per ha stored in tropical rainforests. “Urban trees probably store more carbon than currently estimated from methods that assume relationships of size to mass
Laban Dance Centre in Deptford, London
based on trees grown in open woodland,” noted lead researcher Mathias Disney. The rapid advance and ready availability of technologies and data mean we can get an extremely accurate picture of tree coverage and performance – and studies such as UCL’s are just the tip of the proverbial tree. “Many countries are starting to do wall-to-wall LiDAR mapping now (Wales has done already) and making those data available,” added Disney, “which really makes it easier to do things like this on
much wider scales.” Speaking of wider scales, the City of London has embarked on an ambitious programme of tree planting to tackle climate-related issues and follow through on Mayor Sadiq Khan’s aim to make the capital one of the world’s greenest cities by 2050. Similarly, Newcastle City Council has pledged to plant 19,000 new trees in the city and to increase tree canopy cover to 20% by 2050. However, planting trees without thought is a pointless endeavour and a dead tree is good for firewood and little else. This is where the internet-borne explosion of data becomes particularly useful. Free guides such as the recently released Tree Species Selection for Green Infrastructure – a Guide for Specifiers mean that generalists can avail of simply laid out specialist information. The National Environmental Research Council’s guide provides specific information on more than 280 tree species, covering everything from size and crown characteristics, natural habitat, drought and flood tolerance, ornamental qualities, and potential problems. In London alone, there are 8.4m trees. These sequester about 77,200t of carbon each year, which equates to an admittedly modest 3% of the Greater London area’s carbon emissions. However, aside from tackling air pollution and storing carbon, trees provide a broad range of other functions. They reduce flood risk by absorbing and retaining rainwater and, as NERC notes, trees are increasingly being used in bioretention systems, detention basins, and swales. They also reduce the urban heat island effect through both shade and evapotranspiration. “At a local level, by absorbing over 90% of the sun’s radiation, a person in the shade of a tree can feel 10-15°C cooler (Armson et al. 2012; Orlandini et al. 2017),” the guide notes. “On a larger scale, the evapotranspiration of trees can mitigate the urban heat island effect by using the sun’s radiative energy to evaporate water, reducing its ability to warm air and surfaces.” Trees also provide homes for birds, bats, insects, and fungi and boost wellbeing. Several studies claim green infrastructure reduces pulse rates and blood pressure and improves sleep; and the sweet-scented Hinoki cypress has even been found to boost brain activity and “induce a feeling of comfortableness”.
The right trees in the right places
The key is to select the appropriate tree for its environment – a task more daunting than it appears. For those of us not versed
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Biosolar roof, City of London
Tree species selection guide – in a conker shell
in the inner workings of trees, the sheer number of factors affecting their growth is startling. So, if you want to plant trees for your SuDS scheme, you must use a species with roots that can cope with frequent waterlogging and drought – species that are commonly found by seasonal watercourses. Others must be capable of coping with salty environments. So, when you are planting trees in coastal areas, your tree must be capable of coping with salty air and the wildness of the wind. Trees planted on the roadside must also have a high tolerance to salt and other pollutants due to the use of de-icing salts during winter and the constant barrage of emissions from vehicles. According to the guide, those with thick, leathery leaves are best equipped to deal with the onslaught. And then there are the peculiarities of ancestry to consider. When you are considering light and shade, a species ranking within the forest hierarchy can be important. “Early successional or pioneer species are well adapted to open, high-light environments while late-successional species and under-storey species are much better adapted to the lower light levels under the forest canopy,” the guide explains. Even when you have chosen the correct species for your environment, you may have to consider that different trees of the same species behave differently. So, southern populations of silver birch aren’t hardy enough to be planted in northerly locations while southern ecotypes of Norway maple are more susceptible to frost cracking than their northern brethren. One of the most interesting aspects of the guide is that urban, concreted environments actually have their equivalent in nature, and specifiers can select their trees accordingly.
“Paved urban environments, such as urban plazas, are represented in nature by warm, south-facing mountain slopes with limited soil volume at an early phase of succession,” the guide says. “Species such as black pine, sessile oak, goldenrain tree, mahaleb cherry and Russian olive are suitable trees as they naturally occur in similar conditions and have developed strategies for coping with these conditions,” the guide notes, citing research by Sjöman et al. “However, by improving the planting site by increasing rooting volumes with structural soils, the site becomes more comparable to a scree slope with rooting conditions that provide good aeration and moderate retention of water and nutrients. A number of species grow well on scree slopes and exhibit good long-term development.” Of course, sensitive tree planting, green roofs, and living walls won’t save our cities. Renewable technologies, sustainable construction, and the demise of the combustion engine will all bear greater responsibility. At the same time, however, few can doubt that nature-based solutions have an important part to play. In Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, the protagonist found peace after seeking it for many years. He discovered it not through religion, affairs of the heart, the accumulation of wealth, or hedonism. He found it when he sat down and gazed upon the flow of a river. Greening our streets won’t solve all the problems that beset our cities, but it will make them nicer, healthier places to be. UK Green Roof Market Report 2017: https://bit.ly/2wRtu9Y More on living roofs: www.livingroofs.org
bb.editorial@environment-analyst.com
NERC’s Tree Species Selection for Green Infrastructure - a Guide for Specifiers details the characteristics of more than 280 trees. And it’s free. Here’s an abridged version of what is said about the humble horse chestnut (Aesculus hippocastanum). Use potential: park Size and crown characteristics: A massive tree capable of growing up to 30m in height, with a globular to ovoid crown that can exceed 20m in width. Natural habitat: Native to the Balkan peninsula. Found in the subalpine zone in humid, warm valleys in ‘ravine forests’. Enjoys deep, moist, and well-drained soils. Environmental tolerance: Moderately tolerant to shade. Moderately sensitive to drought and waterlogging Ornamental qualities: White flowers with yellow, then red patches, held in 20-30cm upright clusters. Appearing in late spring to early summer. Highly ornamental. Spiny husks containing lustrous brown nuts, known as conkers. Mature in early autumn, Appearance: Deciduous broadleaved tree. Leaves with five to seven leaflets. Single-stemmed. Grey-brown bark, smooth at first, becoming scaly with age. Issues to be aware of: Conkers create litter in autumn Notes: This species faces a wide range pests and pathogens. It casts a deep shade so not much will grow underneath it. The full guide: https://bit.ly/2zLJxuk
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development+infrastructure
insulation | 15
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Sustainable housing Line your pockets: the UK insulation market in focus and development Rhiannon Garth Jones takes a look at the current UK insulation market, the latest research on insulation materials, and possible road bumps going forward.
The insulation material world
Insulation materials are used in roofs, inside and outside walls, and under floors. At a basic level, they keep your house warmer in winter and cooler in summer, although they can also reduce wear and tear on a structure – especially external cladding. They work by resisting the flow of heat, which is measured by an R-value (the better the insulation material, the higher the R-value). The R-value of a material takes into account the density of the material but also installation factors like thermal bridging, the inconsistent heat flow that occurs when one material
All images courtesy of ISOBIO
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n times of heightened anxiety, we become more aware of things we otherwise take for granted. The Grenfell Tower tragedy has brought, among other things, the issue of insulation materials into the spotlight like never before. Add to that concerns over energy costs and post-Brexit regulation uncertainty, and insulation materials are suddenly a big talking point. This is not a new area for scientists, however, and there has been a great deal of research done on more sustainable insulation materials. Sustainability in housing can be a tricky balancing act. Meeting the seemingly ever-growing demand for housing, using materials that maintain an ecological balance, keeping a low carbon footprint, all while ensuring a fit-for-purpose construction with longevity – it’s challenging work. And getting it right is increasingly important for everyone concerned. So often hidden from view, insulation is a huge part of that balancing act, aiding both social and environmental sustainability, particularly when natural materials are used. Public awareness of insulation, and the specific materials used to achieve it, has increased since the tragedy at Grenfell Tower, with high-rise tenants across the country asking for clarifications on the materials used in their homes and many industry experts calling for changes to regulations. Long-standing concerns over energy bills and the carbon footprint of certain materials have led to increasing amounts of scientific research being done in this area. That, combined with the increased public awareness, makes it a fruitful time to consider the current UK insulation market.
CAVAC hemp rigid insulation
has higher thermal conductivity than the surrounding materials, and whether the installation is in the roof or the wall. Conventional insulation materials are petrochemical-based and include fibreglass, mineral wool, rigid polyurethane (PUR), and polyisocyanurate (PIR) foam. PUR/PIR products have the largest market share, accounting for around 40% of the UK market in 2016. Dr Michael Lawrence, principal investigator for the ISOBIO Project at the BRE Centre for Innovative Construction Materials (BRECICM), University of Bath, says: “many of the large-scale developers are wedded to traditional technologies and their low up-front costs”. However, these conventional insulation materials contain a wide range of chemical fire retardants, adhesives and other additives, and the embodied energy in the manufacturing process is very high. Those concerns are part of the reason the insulation market seems to be trending away from conventional materials. The European Architectural Barometer Q2 2018 report, gathered by USP Marketing Consultancy, surveyed 1,600 architects across eight European countries on their expectations about material usage. In the UK, a majority of respondents expected natural and mineral insulation materials
to become more popular, at the expense of PUR/PIR insulation and especially polystyrene foams. There is an increasing variety of natural and mineral materials available, as researchers work to match the R-value of more conventional options while mitigating their environmental impact. Traditional natural materials used in insulation include sheep’s wool, although it often needs to be chemically treated to reduce fire-risk; cellulose, made from recycled newspapers, which is popular because it can easily be blown into cavity walls, floors and roofs; and hemp, which is easily grown. All three have a similar R-value to fibreglass. All three fall into the “other” category in AMA Research’s breakdown of the current insulation materials market share, which accounts for 10% of the market. However, this also includes a lot of non-natural materials, so the true figure could be as low as 5% by value and less by volume. There’s a lot of room for the growth that UK architects are predicting.
Innovative natural materials
Dr Lawrence works extensively in natural building materials and, in addition to his role at BRECICM, he is director of the Building Research Park at Wroughton,
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in Wiltshire, where the EPSRC-funded experimental building the HIVE is located. He is also principal investigator for the EU-funded HEMPSEC and ISOBIO projects. The list of natural materials he highlights indicate how much work is happening in this area (see box-out). The HIVE project, based at the University of Bath, allows researchers to study and test the carbon emissions and the environmental impact of novel construction materials. The aim is that such research “will make a real difference to the future of construction both in the UK and worldwide”. Lawrence believes “great progress is being made in the development of rigid insulation materials”. In particular, he cites the ISOBIO project, which has been tested at HIVE, resulting in “groundbreaking products, including low-density hemp-based rigid insulation panels that are 100% bio-based” as well as a low-density insulating render that he claims “out-performs anything else available on the market”. The project expects that these two products will be available at scale by 2020 to be used in insulation panels for the retrofit market. In its 2018 Project Review, the Energy Efficient Buildings (E2B) Committee of the ECTP noted another aspect of the ISOBIO project’s materials, that they “take advantage of the natural moisture release feature to improve indoor air quality”. Lawrence himself comments that this is a feature of many bio-based insulators, saying: “they possess additional functionalities, not found in conventional mineral or oil-based insulators. Most of them have the ability to buffer moisture – to absorb excess atmospheric moisture when the surrounding air is humid, and to desorb moisture when the atmosphere is dry. Buildings constructed using these materials have far more stable internal air humidity resulting in higher comfort levels for occupants”. Lawrence thinks this should be considered when evaluating their performance, saying: “In addition, some materials, such as hemp, are also able to buffer thermal energy, stabilising thermal conditions inside buildings. This means that they perform even better than their simple thermal conductivity measurement would imply.” Elsewhere, another EU-funded project is working to develop a sustainable insulation system based on functional biopolymers and aerogels. The cladding panels GELCLAD are working on combined by-product lignin resins (derived from the pulp and paper industry and other renewable polymers instead of petro-
chemicals) and low energy consumption aerogel core. The final product should have both insulating and weather-proofing capabilities. GELCLAD partner Dr Andrew Dunster, principal consultant (Materials) for BRE, UK, believes there is a sizeable market for “affordable and efficient smart cladding eco-panels”. He has stated that: “the total wall areas of the European residential building stock is currently estimated to be around 12,600 million m² for houses and 4,450 million m² for high-rise buildings. Under this context, adding insulation will be relevant for 40–60% of the building stock during the next 10 years, which represents a huge market. Meanwhile, many old buildings, mostly from the 1960s–80s, could benefit greatly from energy savings for their residents.”
Natural building materials projects being developed at ISOBIO pre-fabricated straw bale panels to industrialise straw bale construction and pave the way for mass production of construction elements n new hemp-lime formulations to optimise performance n prefabricated hemp-lime panels to facilitate rapid, fault-free erection of buildings n novel bio-based insulation materials using different binders with hemp and other bio-aggregates to reduce carbon footprint and improve thermal resistance n and composite construction panels, combining novel insulation materials with renewable energy generation n
Retrofitting the future
Dunster is smart to highlight the potential of the retrofitting market, which is sizeable. AMA Research’s report, Building Insulation Products Market Report - UK 2017-2021 Analysis, observed that: “domestic retrofit remains an important market sector in the building insulation market, with cavity walls and lofts key application areas”. Retrofitting is usually supported by both local and national Government policies so, even when national subsidies are removed, it remains a significant area.
Moreover, recent research from the Institution of Engineering and Technology and Nottingham Trent University has found that meeting current Government targets of 80% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by mid-century would require sweeping policy change, particularly in this area. Marjan Sarshar, professor of Sustainability and the Built Environment at Nottingham Trent University, said: “A national programme for a one-off deep retrofit [of all residential property] is needed”. The London Mayor’s Office already does a significant amount of work in this area. One of its many projects that support retrofitting is the RE:NEW programme, which offers technical assistance to housing providers on improving the energy efficiency of their housing stock. A spokesperson for the programme made clear that it doesn’t “recommend specific products or companies – only the measures that would result in the calculated energy/carbon saving”. The housing provider would then be expected to “agree on a detailed specification with their chosen contractor which would specify the products they intend to use to meet the energy performance improvements that RE:NEW have suggested”. Other programmes run by the Mayor’s Office include Warmer Homes, a £2.5m scheme across London, where eligible households can apply for up to £4,000-worth of home improvements, including insulation for walls, roofs and floors, managed by RetrofitWorks, a co-operative of installers that specialise in home energy improvements. A new small-scale insulation project for private rented housing will also soon be launched, although details were unavailable at the time of writing.
Spinning straw into gold?
Despite greater public awareness, the UK insulation market remains heavily dependant on Government policy. AMA Research’s report shows how Government policy influences the market, driving some of the decline in 2015, for example, when subsidies for retrofitted installation activity fell, the Green Deal was scrapped, and funding for the Energy Company Obligation (ECO) was reduced. The expiry of the ECO at the end of this tax year will likely see another drop in demand. According to the report, “Forecast growth will be subject to any further Government subsidies”. On the other hand, rising construction output and house-building levels, encouraged by Government policy, have
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insulation | 17
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Sustainable housing and development
TWI surface treatment
least, the uncertainty created by the Brexit situation is likely to create more volatility in the construction market at large, which in turn will lead to a lack of confidence among property investors and business owners. “Other issues include a weakening of Sterling against the Euro and the US dollar, endemic problems concerning skills shortages in key areas, and the challenges associated with the changes to fire regulations and changed specifications for cladding products.”
driven a recovery in the market since 2016, and house-building remains a regularlystated priority for the UK Government. Other major influencing factors on the market include changes to building regulations, an area that could certainly see changes, and energy prices, as well as uncertainty around Brexit. AMA Research’s more recent report, Wall Cladding Market Report - UK 2018-2022, states: “the medium-term outlook will be dependent upon the path taken to exit the EU and the type of trade and legislative deals formulated. As a result, our view is that demand for cladding will decline. Over the period ending March 2019, at the very
Although it is not yet clear what they will be, it seems certain there will be some regulatory changes introduced in response to the Grenfell Tower fire. Alex Blagden, senior market research analyst at AMA Research, says: “the key issue most likely to have a marked impact on the insulation sector is the outcome of changes in policies, regulations, and building specifications, including those arising from investigations into the Grenfell Tower disaster, which have also included fire safety assessments for many other high-rise residential towers”. The Hackitt Review, the Governmentcommissioned report into the UK system of building control and specifications
BCB lime render on hemp board
The Grenfell effect
following the Grenfell disaster, was published in May 2018. It focused specifically on issues related to high-rise residential buildings, including: l the regulatory system around design, construction, and ongoing management l compliance and enforcement issues l and international regulation and experience in this area. In the report, Dame Hackitt argues “there is a need for a radical rethink of the whole system and how it works. This is most definitely not just a question of the specification of cladding systems, but of [the] industry” but stopped short of banning certain materials. In response to the Hackitt Review, the Government is: l consulting on significantly restricting or banning the use of desktop studies to assess cladding systems l working with industry to clarify Building Regulations fire safety guidance, and will publish this for consultation in July l consulting on banning the use of combustible materials in cladding systems on high-rise residential buildings l and working with the industry to make the wider suite of building regulations guidance more user-friendly. In addition, the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee
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published a report in July 2018 calling for the ban to extend to existing buildings and residential homes, hospitals, student accommodation, and hotels. The results of those consultations are not yet decided, however, and uncertainty remains. Blagden believes that, if the Government does extend the ban, it will “drive down demand for cladding systems comprising combustible insulation material e.g. aluminium composite panels. An assessment of more than 600 high-rise residential buildings has shown that there is a considerable number that have been fitted with combustible cladding. Should demand for cladding systems with rigid polymer insulation cores decline because of a ban, we would expect there to be a marked increase in specifications of noncombustible materials, such as stone wool, glass wool, pre-cast concrete, and fibre cement.” Blagden also points out that “many industry experts have contested that, as they stand, the current Building
What’s the latest thinking on major insulation materials? Mineral wool
A generic name for a range of man-made non-metallic inorganic fibres, including “rock wool” and “glass wool”. Recent studies have focused on the issues these materials have with water absorption, which reduces their effectiveness. A 2017 study in Case Studies in Thermal Engineering demonstrated that mineral wools perform differently, specifically in terms of water absorption in different environments. The study suggested the properties of differing mineral wool products are more appropriate in some environments than others and recommended further investigation into the applications for which individual types are best suited.
gypsum
A 2017 study in the International Journal of Sustainable Development and Planning demonstrated that lightened gypsum materials had better thermal insulation properties, attractive acoustic properties, and lower transportation costs than commonly used gypsum insulation products. The lightened materials were created either indirectly by a lightweight filler or directly by the help of surface active substances and could be used in a similar way to autoclaved aerated concrete, a commonly-used insulation material with a similar density.
PUR/PIR
The combustibility of PUR/PIR foams is currently a significant area of interest. A 2017 paper in IOP Conference Series: Earth and Environmental Science looked at improving the thermal insulation properties of sprayed rigid PUR/ PIR foams and reducing their combustibility. It established that further development would require better uniformity of technical characteristics of both the original components and finished products and recommended the creation of a unified information base for the raw and auxiliary materials used in production.
waste wool
A 2015 study in Energy and Buildings analysed the thermal and acoustic insulation qualities of waste wool, recycled polyester fibres (RPET), and a combined sample with 50/50 proportions in the form of a two-layer mat. Moisture absorption, high humidity behaviour, and fire properties were also tested. The two-layer combined RPET/waste wool mat provided the best insulation, acoustic, moisture absorption, and fire properties.
hemp line
ISOBIO insulation panel
Regulations are not fit for purpose partly due to lack of clarification”. One such industry figure is Simon Robinson, chief executive of the UK’s Rigid Polyurethane Foam Association, who has welcomed the Hackitt Review. He said: “Many people in the construction sector have felt for some time that the system was not good. It has become too complex and too open to interpretation,” adding, “We have got to get it right and the Hackitt report gives us an opportunity to do this”. The unusually strong influence that
A 2017 study in Energy and Buildings concluded that hemp-lime has a clear advantage over comparable conventional materials in terms of embodied energy and net CO2 emissions over the entire lifecycle of a typical building. The thermal properties and behaviour of a hemp-lime wall material were found experimentally to be virtually identical to autoclaved aerated concrete, a commonly-used insulation material with a similar density.
Government policy has on the UK insulation market means there is always some uncertainty and that is particularly true at the moment. It seems likely that, post-Grenfell, increased regulation will be popular, and changes may become possible after the UK leaves the EU and its regulatory market. It also seems likely that non-combustible materials will increase in popularity. The slow-burn increase in popularity
of natural materials will probably also continue, as significant improvements are made across this area, but they seem more vulnerable to shifts in Government policy as they are less well-established. Moreover, many research projects on sustainable insulation materials are at least part-funded by the EU, which adds further uncertainty to their potential progress. bb.editorial@environment-analyst.com
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boxland | 19
SPECIAL ISSUE:
Sustainable housing Thinking outside the boxland and development
© 2018 Google
Many of London’s industrial spaces could be repurposed into mixed use neighbourhoods, providing up to 300,000 new homes while preserving industrial space. Eoin Redahan reports.
Self-storage site in West London.
W
hat is the first image that comes to mind when you hear the word boxland? Is it: A) a dystopian film that’s on TV every Christmas B) Bruce Springsteen’s lament for a hard-working Joe C) or a solution to London’s housing crisis? In fairness, you could be forgiven for thinking any of the above because, let’s face it, boxland is not a term we hear very often. And yet, in London alone, 1,220 of these office, industrial, and commercial sites could be redeveloped to create thousands of new homes while maintaining the industrial space that is slipping away like water through our fingers. The vision proposed in Better Brownfield – a report from Policy Exchange and Create Streets – is one where mixed-use neighbourhoods with homes and businesses replace these boxland sites. They argue that these new “London-like neighbourhoods” make better use of the land while conserving much-needed industrial space. It is clear that councils are becoming increasingly worried about the loss of industrial space. For example, Brent Council, in northwest London, has decided to limit conversions from residential to conversion space for that very reason.
“Some boroughs are reporting a loss of industrial space,” says Jack Airey, research fellow in Place and Prosperity at the Policy Exchange, in reference to London’s outer boroughs in particular. “There’s also a shortage of land coming forward for new homes. So, you’ve got to balance the two, given there is little opportunity currently to expand London outwards. This places pressure on the brownfield land within the city’s boundaries.” Airey and his colleagues believe the industrial space known as boxland is used inefficiently, with many of these sites surrounded by car parks and neglected open space. They believe it could be used more productively without losing this industrial land, especially given the changing nature of the way we work. “The economy and nature of work is changing, meaning there tends to be less need for large premises in some industries,” he says. “A few big retail firms are reporting that they don’t need such big shops any more. They can relocate to smaller shops and this opens up opportunities on the kind of land that we call boxland.” “A move towards mixed use does not need to come at the expense of industrial land. You can protect industrial and commercial land and develop the open land for residential.”
London-like neighbourhoods
Of course, not all boxlands are suitable but places where there is lighter industry such as storage sites could be suitable for these London-like neighbourhoods; but what do the report authors mean by “London-like”? According to Airey, parts of London provide examples of effective mixed-use developments. Areas such as Peckham, Hackney, and Chelsea contain many low to medium-rise buildings, with high housing density, yet lots of green space. “Typically, they’ll be terraced housing in mansion blocks, set within traditional street patterns with shops, amenities, and work places,” Airey adds. “They tend to be the places people associate with London and like about London.” As important as the physical makeup of these neighbourhoods is the way they feel. At their best, these areas do not seem crowded, regardless of density. They are nice to walk around in and are among the neighbourhood designs Londoners seem to like most; and if new neighbourhoods are to be created in this likeness, they must be just as well designed lest they incur local animus. “NIMBYism slows and too often prevents development, whether you’re in the city or the countryside,” says Airey. “Rather than just ignoring people’s opposition to new development, we
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London-like neighbourhoods The Better Boxland report outlines proposals for banishing our boxlands and replacing them with London-like neighbourhoods. So, what could these new estates actually look like? ©2018 Google
Elizabeth Towns: Medium-rise,
high density, traditional mixed-use town centres on former Boxland sites along the new Elizabeth Line.
Graham Mansions Victorian homes in Hackney, London.
should be responding to it by building homes people like and support and that’s how we think it would be quickest through the planning system… People are actually willing to support new homes even in their area if they are built in a way that people like.” The report recommends community design codes, with local architects, residents, and planners on the panel deciding what local people want in their areas. “We should build what people like ♦ 1,220 – boxland sites in London, according to OpenStreetMap ♦ 250,000 - 300,000 – homes these could accommodate alongside commercial uses ♦ 50/64 - studies associated compact, walkable neighbourhoods with positive health outcomes ♦ 649,350 - homes slated for construction in The London Plan in the next 10 years *stats taken from the Better Boxland report
– homes and buildings that people like and support,” he says. “The philosopher Roger Scruton talks about architecture as a form of public art, how we all experience it and have little choice in the matter. So, we should be building for people rather than architects building for each other.”
Barriers to boxland
Despite all the positives, there are several reasons why these sites are difficult to develop. Firstly, we have the age-old cost of regenerating brownfield sites and the weighty up-front costs required. Secondly, the first pioneers haven’t plunged their flags into these plots and begun building
these new developments. Developers are relatively inexperienced at creating these types of developments in the UK and it remains to be seen whether we have the necessary skills and experience to create a Chelsea-like neighbourhood on grimy industrial sites on the edges of settlements. Thirdly, there are legislative barriers to overcome. Protections are in place to protect strategic industrial land, making it harder to build on these sites. “We’re suggesting that at some point they might want to review that,” Airey says. “The Mayor [of London] should really be asking boroughs to be more creative with these sites.” Fourthly, politicians may not want to be seen reducing the amount of land available for commercial and industrial use. As some adviser might say, the optics don’t look good. The fifth constraint is arguably the tallest barrier of all. “Do people want to live next door to industry?” Airey asks. “Instinctively, they would say no but our intuition on that is changing. The market has proven sceptical about the co-location of industry with residential developments; but as pressures for land intensify, new solutions are being developed and developers in the wider real estate industry are giving more consideration to how the market might adapt to these new forms of mixed-use developments. There is evidence to suggest that developer attitudes are changing.” Airey is also heartened by the intent of the revised National Planning Policy Framework, how it recognises the importance of high-quality design in the planning and development process and encourages local authorities to reject planning applications that fail to meet design standards. “It provides the necessary guidelines,” he says. “The challenge going forward is ensuring good design is defined by the
Thames Towns: a series of low-rise, high-density, traditional mixed-use neighbourhoods along the banks of the Thames Estuary. Create Boulevards: a partially
community-led programme for the beautification of London’s arterial roads with more trees and attractive medium-rise new buildings.
public. We need to get to a point where homes are built in line with the design styles people like, that they want, and support. Design codes and style guides are a strong part of this and should be a part of local planning frameworks.” The report authors feel it’s important for Sadiq Khan to push these types of developments, to make people aware of them and emphasise the need to bring these types of mixed-use developments forward in the new London Plan. It has become increasingly clear that we need to come up with creative solutions to our housing problem. It is also essential that we build healthy, sustainable neighbourhoods instead of interminable blocks of drab cookie-cutter homes. When we visit Prague, Vienna, or Barcelona, we are struck by the bewitching quality of design. Such places lift our spirits. London, too, has a beauty all of its own, and redeveloping boxland sites to replicate its more attractive neighbourhoods cannot be a bad idea. “What people like most about their cities is their physical appearance,” says Airey. “It sounds fluffy but it really does matter. How can you engender a piece of beauty through a policy document? The difficulty of it shouldn’t stop us trying to provide the guidelines and power for local councils to engender it.” bb.editorial@environment-analyst.com
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Zed Pods | 21
SPECIAL ISSUE:
Sustainable housing Going from and development A to ZEDpod What if you could build a house on a car park while saving most of your parking space? And what if you could create these zero carbon homes in a factory within days and put them on-site – all for a build price of less than £100,000? ZED Pods proposes these very solutions. Eoin Redahan reports.
O
n first inspection, the ZEDPod is an unusual take on the homes we know. ZED Pods’ creation is narrow and perches above ground level, yet it is a fully formed house. There is a balcony, two storeys, a bedroom, and living room-cumkitchen area. It is small but does not feel cramped. To me, the magic dwells not in the design of the interior space, but in what these homes promise: zero carbon, quick-tobuild, low-cost dwellings that provide a viable housing solution on a desert of ready-made urban sites. However, progress and acceptance have been slow. On the plus side, the Mitchambased company just announced that Bristol City Council has purchased six of these ZED Pod homes and another 50 are in or about to go into planning, but council buy-in has been slow. In a frank and wide-ranging interview, Bill Dunster, principle of ZED Pods (standing for zero fossil energy developments), spoke about getting these homes to market, local authority inertia, photovoltaic cladding, and, eh, GORE-TEX jackets...
Why car parks?
The reason why we have concentrated on car parks is because there are 1.2m public parking bays in the UK and there’s a great shortage of housing land. If you can decouple the cost of housing with the cost of purchasing land, you’re going to make great inroads into solving the housing problem. We can have 250,000 of these homes up without even having to find any land that was previously allocated to the housing.
First space compliant Zed Pod, at Bristol Housing Festival.
Are these homes prefabricated in a factory setting?
There are a number of prefabricated elements and they all need assembly in factory conditions in a very controlled way. It has to be mortgageable; it has to be super durable; it has to be airtight. The quality of all the cladding and tolerances are carefully controlled. It’s a very long, very far cry from a traditional building site with bricklayers and foundations and carpenters and so on. It’s a completely different skill-set. It’s about being methodical, understanding sequence… but we’re pretty sure now that we can take motivated students and people leaving college and assemble highperformance zero carbon homes that are completely accessible to most of the population.
Tell us more about the structure of these homes. The main structure is cross laminated
timber with a net carbon sink (a carbonstoring compound)... so, the structure is low in carbon and sequesters carbon. It’s extremely airtight with vapour permeable air tightness, but it doesn’t have stupid air tightness, which is vapour impermeable and basically covers the inside with plastic sheets. That’s the difference between a GORE-TEX raincoat and a cheap nylon one – one is pretty sweaty and the other isn’t. For insulation, we use non-combustible rockwool that is also vapour permeable. We chose rockwool because... we’ve had concerns, particularly in the social housing sector, for absolute non-combustibility after Grenfell... We clad homes in a noncombustible, basically painted, cement weatherboarding – again because the surface spread of flame is a means of escape and so on. So, the structure is the CLT impregnated with three coats of a fire-resistant impregnation; and then it’s painted in a
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Kevin McCloud with ZED Pods architect Bill Dunster
water-based mineral stain, which is nice and easy to work down and clean. Then it’s plaster. You really can’t damage the interior of these units. If you try to kick a hole in them, you hurt your feet. It’s way more durable than most conventional building materials. The breathing air tightness membrane is in the middle of the wall so there are no electrics and plumbing penetrations through it or very few, and we use triple glazed Alu-Clad timber windows for durability.
How are the homes heated?
We’ve got it down to the point where we have a little 450-Watt electric intake heat pump that provides all the domestic hot water and keeps the building warm in the winter. You basically have a near zero heating spec building. If you reduced the levels of insulation or the performance of the glazing and so on, then you’d spend a lot more on energy, you’d spend a lot more on mechanical and electrical systems, and you wouldn’t be able to run the home on a lighting circuit in a car park. What’s nice about the design is that it has minimised demand for energy to the point where it can be substantially met about 70-80% of the time from the building integrated solar on the roof and it’s got its own little battery storage units if required.
First space compliant Zed Pod, at Bristol Housing Festival
How much more expensive does this make the homes?
We’re installing mid-terrace homes for around the £87,000 mark, which are space standard compliant… We do single floor units with building integrated photovoltaic cladding on the vertical faces. I mean, really, this is totally possible. People are spending more than this on their cars. In almost any of the locations that we’re looking at, particularly in the South East
and parts of the South West, to install a unit the worst scenario is £100,000. But what’s the value of that unit – way more than £100,000. So, why should there be any case for devaluing the performance of it or the construction of it?
You mentioned building integrated photovoltaic cladding. What is this? It is a cladding system that generates electricity and also gives super insulation
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Zed Pods | 23
SPECIAL ISSUE:
Sustainable housing and air tightness... Basically, you have and development
a toughened glass monocrystalline solar panel. Instead of putting it in an aluminium frame and fitting it on top of an existing roof or in front of an existing façade, it replaces the façade – so, it comes with the insulation or is integrated. It’s a game-changer because, for the same price as cladding a building in cheap decorative panels, you can generate electricity and large amounts of it. We’ve also developed a battery storage system that goes with that. The first 10 roofs of this are up in Hainault (in North East London) on a zero energy bills estate... I think this is a game changer.
In your chats with local planning authorities, what has the main stumbling block to development been?
The main stumbling block at the moment is local authority inertia. There doesn’t seem to be any sufficient will to solve the housing problem. Frankly, I think when the first schemes above car parks are up and running... once we’ve got happy residents in for a year, the floodgates will open. I think it’s more of the British fear of the new... If you’re an officer working for a local authority and you’ve got a car park, you’re not rewarded for taking any risks. We show that you can build zerocarbon, durable, mortgageable, long-term housing solutions on land that has not even previously been identified as appropriate for housing – land that is next to public transport modes, next to jobs. This could be in hospital car parks… local authority car parks, leisure centre car parks, or park and rides. This means you don’t have to build on the green belt. You don’t have to pay literally millions of pounds for housing plots. It can solve the problem of people trying to get onto the housing ladder. We didn’t see this as a solution for larger families; we see this as a solution for the young ones.
got orchards that go above parking on larger sites like park and rides. We can turn a tarmac wasteland into an urban oasis. We’ve got very large amounts of building integrated photovoltaics that we manufacture ourselves and turn the car park into a solar farm. We integrate electric vehicle charging into every single parking bay under our units where there is actual adequate power to run it. It’s hard to see how many communities couldn’t benefit from this strategy.
How receptive have other countries been to the ZED Pod? We’ve built some in Shanghai. We’re in talks with a Chinese factory that wants to start manufacturing them for the Chinese market. We’ve had enquiries from other countries and we won a Swiss Design Award. Innovation in the UK is kind of brushed under the carpet... I’m determined to prove that the affordable zero carbon home is totally possible and sensible. The only reason it hasn’t got going is because it has had no support from Government - not much support from Government - and the private sector is doing its best not to do this. But other countries have achieved economies of scale in renewable energy manufacturing and production and the reliability of all these technologies… is getting better and better and the costs per square metre have gone lower and lower… You can’t turn the clock back. Why would you not do this?
On a more positive note, what makes ZED Pods so useful for building on difficult-to-develop sites?
They can be installed in a couple of days, sometimes in a matter of hours. They don’t need foundations. We’ve got a patented raft system that you basically park on top and that also provides ballast. It exerts no more pressure on the surface than a parked car. It’s been designed as a proper urban system with access and stairs and bin stores and all the things you need to make a community work. We’ve got different designs with rooftop terraces and solar lofts. We’ve
Schematic of Dunstable Zed Pods scheme.
The revised NPPF aims to help deliver high quality housing, increase energy efficiency, and back SMES. Do you feel the Government will deliver on these pledges?
All we can do is hope that they actually do what they say. There’s no point in running it down. Actions speak louder than words, don’t they? Actually, one of the main things stopping rolling this idea out is that local authorities will only deal with someone who’s already on their procurement frameworks. It’s very hard to make an entry into the volume UK housing market. It’s very difficult. It’s well sewn by the usual suspects… but we’re so good they can’t stop us.
What’s next?
In the short-term, we’re mainly working with the private sector, which recognises the quality of our homes, and we’re using up scraps of land in car parks and so on… We are in conversations with large local authorities and we’ve been working with Andrew Selous, MP for Central Bedfordshire. The idea is slowly catching on. We’re trying to show that there is a future that can be planned and works and avoids runaway climate change. It’s all at our fingertips if we want it to work.
ZED Pods video https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_ continue=2&v=2n2eSUXEPpU bb.editorial@environment-analyst.com
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New spokes for the big wheel How do we build better urban spaces – thousands of places that are affordable, climateresilient, and pleasant? Eoin Redahan found out at the recent Building Sustainable Towns and Cities event in London.
“I
t feels as if we’re in the foothills of a digital revolution.” As soundbites go, this was a tasty one from Michael Bingham. Much of what the Head of Planning Strategy at MCHLG said sounded sensible. We do need to make better use of planning conditions to speed up new home delivery. Yes, let’s use Community Infrastructure Levies to help councils build local facilities. And those underused retail parks scattered across our suburbs? Great idea. Let’s bring them back into more productive use. However, none of this will provide solace to the family who scours London for an affordable home and is left with a choice of areas where they have a statisticallyhigh chance of being stabbed. The digital revolution might save us, but what’s taking it so long?
Modern manufacturing and the mortgage
Clearly, our approach to construction must change if we’re going to hit that seemingly otherworldly 300,000-home yearly target. Michael O’Doherty, regional programme manager at the Cabinet Office/Local Government Association One Public Estate Programme, felt this target will not be met using traditional methods, so
off-site manufacturing must become part of the housing mix. However, industry has been slow to commit to this new relationship. Simply put, prefabricated housing factories haven’t been built because developers cannot see a demand pipeline; and O’Doherty wasn’t alone in noting that many people still have funny notions about the quality of prefabricated housing, while the mortgage-ability of these properties
“We need to take a sensible look at minimum space standards… It will help drive density.” Nick Whitten, JLL
has traditionally been an issue. The other, rather depressing issue that reared its grey head several times during the day was the age of the UK’s construction workforce. Nick Whitten, the director of UK Research at corporate property management firm JLL, cited sobering statistics from the 2016 Farmer Review, which found that 700,000 construction workers are at least 55 years old and only 2,500 apprentices are taken on in the UK each year. When you factor in Brexit and the ensuing emigration of thousands of European workers, it doesn’t take Nostradamus to foresee trouble. Whitten doesn’t believe we are capable of building the required volume of housing using traditional construction methods; plus there is lots to like about modern methods of manufacturing. Off-site manufacturing produces less waste and construction dust. By building in factory conditions, you don’t have to worry about our ill-tempered weather, automation should improve accuracy and build times, and the less intrusive process shouldn’t wind up local communities. For now, however, these green shoots are barely spearing above soil level, but there is enough there to suggest growth. For example, Whitten noted that the
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sustainable building event | 25
SPECIAL ISSUE:
Sustainable housing and development
city centres. For example, protected views of St Paul’s and Westminster limit the upward mobility of commercial space in the city of London and all developments in Oxford city centre must be lower in height than the Carfax Tower. Unfortunately, apart from building on underused “boxland” sites and making the most of other brownfield opportunities, the solution isn’t easily found. Breach believes offering permitted development rights exemptions for every city centre, relaxing development restrictions, and devolving missing coordination powers to big cities could help alleviate the problem.
housebuilder L&G recently completed a prefabricated housing development with more than 33 mortgage providers represented in the homes sold.
Ace of space
Not only do we need to rethink our timehonoured techniques, some suggest we should change the way people occupy living space. With more than two-thirds of the world’s population destined to live in urban areas by 2040, according to UN predictions, Whitten questioned whether the UK should change its approach to minimum housing space standards. At present, the minimum size of a UK home is 37m² and the average size is 76m². By contrast, both the Netherlands and France have much lower minimum space standards and Germany has none at all. The UK’s standards may be designed to ensure everyone has a comfortable living space, but do they fail to account for changes in the way people are living? Fewer people are getting married these days, life expectancy is increasing, we’re having children later, and nearly two thirds of UK homes do not contain children. Indeed, the number of people per home has fallen from three in the 1970s to 2.3 today (according to Michael Bauer Research). Aside from the fact that fewer people are living in our homes today, the evolution of technology has changed the way we use our spaces. For example, the giant blocky TVs of yesteryear have been replaced by screens that hang picture-like on our walls, and CD racks, telephones, sound systems, and book shelves can now be housed in a device that fits in our pockets. The way we’re thinking about home design is also changing. Some homes are now being built with movable walls to enlarge or shorten bedrooms or living rooms as people see fit, and larger communal spaces in housing developments compensate for smaller interior spaces. Plus, a change towards less spacious, higher density developments wouldn’t actually be that grand a departure. Having analysed 15m housing records in England and Wales – two-thirds of the housing stock – JLL found that 500,000 of these homes are actually smaller than the minimum space
The infrastructure key
standards due to the gradual sub-division of properties. Interestingly, it also found that around half of the people living in these homes belonged to the most affluent demographic – that is to say they choose to live in these smaller places. “We need to take a sensible look at minimum space standards,” concluded Whitten. “It will help drive density.”
Closed for business
When we speak about construction issues, commercial interests often slip between the cracks of conversation, yet office space is disappearing from our towns and cities. Extraordinary advances in communication in the past 200 years mean we can do much from remote areas. Despite this, Anthony Breach, analyst at Centre for Cities, says society hasn’t drifted from our towns and cities; it has actually centralised, with companies valuing face-to-face contact as much as ever. He claims firms continue to scrabble for coveted city centre sites but there just isn’t enough to land go around. Worryingly, permitted development rights, in which property use can be switched from commercial to residential, mean that commercial space is actually shrinking in our cities. This trend has had a detrimental economic effect in many places, including the Berkshire towns of Reading and Slough. It is undoubtedly a conundrum. The green belt restricts those looking to develop land on the edge of town and high rise developments are often stymied in
Not many would argue convincingly that the market alone is capable of remedying our housing ills. For the right homes to get built in the right places, the Government must provide infrastructure to incentivise development. Now, while you obviously cannot use a YouGov poll to reflect the mood of a nation, questions posed by law firm Burges Salmon LLP underlined the need for state support. Ross Polkinghorne, partner at the firm, noted that 93% of respondents were unconvinced that the current national housing target is achievable. More interestingly, one third didn’t support the development of new housing in their areas. When asked why this was, two thirds of respondents said that new development would place too large of a strain on existing infrastructure. Major infrastructure projects may be perceived as vanity ventures to some, but Polkinghorne argued that schemes such as the East-West Rail and Barking Riverside projects are economic enablers. Like many, he supported the release of more public sector land for housing and believed that Homes England should play a central role in driving projects forward. However, the lack of continuity at a Government level remains a real worry. “In my view, having 11 housing ministers in 10 years is criminal,” he said. “You need some stability. This role needs to be given serious weight and importance.” Polkinghorne wryly noted that the last Housing Minister, Dominic Raab, didn’t even last long enough to give a speech but at least Kate Taylor of Homes England talked a bigger game on behalf of
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SPECIAL ISS
a Government agency. She, too, believes infrastructure is one of the main ways to unlock development and she rattled off some impressive-sounding numbers: £2.3bn in infrastructure for new housing and complex projects, £1bn allocated for SMEs, and funding for 133 Council-led projects. Basically, Homes England aims to help deliver the infrastructure that will kickstart big developments, such as a £65m infrastructure loan it provided for a brownfield development in Wembley, London, that will help the construction of 5,700 build-to-rent units. “A theme across our projects is we put in infrastructure funding,” said Taylor, “and it provides confidence in the projects.”
“We created a new market for a different type of housing in Newcastle… The prices fetched more than the local estate agents thought they would.”
One reason why it’s important to diversify the housing mix beyond the dozen or so developers that dominate the UK landscape is to encourage the innovation and freshness brought by variety. One example of this inventive thinking is the Ash Sakula Architects-designed scheme on the former Mailings Pottery site in Ouseburn, Newcastle. Associate Sarah Beth Riley’s talk on these user-focused homes offered a timely reminder that we must strive to create
Sarah Beth Riley
Reinventing the space
not just homes, but healthy communities. Ash Sakula redevelops challenging sites – strangely shaped oddities and relics of Britain’s industrial past and the Mailings site is no different. According to Riley, Ash Sakula and regeneration partner Igloo Regeneration achieved high housing density on the
site without building flats. They wanted to avoid typical typologies in delivering the 76-home scheme and stacking apartments on top of each other like piles of matchboxes. Instead, it created a mix of one- to four bed homes in tower houses, each with access to either a private garden or roof terrace. The development contains several design features aimed at boosting the wellbeing of occupants. These include staggering the alignment of the homes in such a way that each has a view of the river, sinking car parking spaces to make the place look nicer, creating water gardens and gabions to protect against flooding, and micro-allotments and a large communal feasting table to foster a community atmosphere. Developments such as this one lend credence to the idea that if you create places that are sensitive to health and wellbeing, not only will people want to live there, they will pay more to live in these spaces. “We created a new market for a different type of housing in Newcastle,” Riley said. “The prices fetched more than the local estate agents thought they would.” bb.editorial@environment-analyst.com
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Directory | 27
Service Provider Sustainable housing Directory SPECIAL ISSUE:
andisdevelopment Below a selection of service providers including land remediation consultants and contractors as well as flood risk & control services. For our full directory, please visit our website www.developmentandinfrastructure.com/directory Land Remediation Consultants and Contractors AECOM
A Fortune 500 firm, AECOM is the world’s largest remediation company with more than 5,000 remediation staff world-wide and a gross annual revenue from remediation projects alone of over $1 billion. We design, build, finance and operate infrastructure assets for governments, businesses and organisations in more than 150 countries. Rachel Odonnell Business Unit Director, Environmental Liability Solutions, Environment & Ground Engineering Tel: +44-7753912128 Email: rachel.odonnell@aecom.com Web: www.aecom.com
Arcadis UK Ltd
Arcadis FieldTech Solutions has a dedicated team of environmental experts who specialise in meeting your environmental contracting needs including Geotechnical and Environmental Ground investigation; specialist in-situ probing (MIP and LIF);tailored design and build remediation contracting services; decommissioning and demolition services (including explosive demolition) and creating value from redundant assets. Mark Webb Senior Technical Director 34 York Way, London, N1 9AB Tel: 01638 674767 Email: mark.webb@arcadis.com Web: http://arcadis.com
Celtic EnGlobe
Celtic-EnGlobe is one of the leading remediation and brownfield enabling works contractors in the UK, with a proven track record of delivery after more than 25 years in the industry. Celtic-EnGlobe is part of EnGlobe Corp, a world leader in providing integrated environmental services which operates in the UK, France, Middle East, USA and Canada. By partnering with us, you are able to rely on our extensive experience and delivery capability. Kathy Newall Business Development Manager Unit 8, Commerce Park Brunel Rad, Theale, Reading, RG7 4AB Tel: 07985 836227 | Tel: 01189 167340 Email: kathy.newall@celtic-ltd.com Web: http://celtic-ltd.com
DEME
DEME Environmental Contractors UK Ltd DEC is one of Europe’s leading environmental remediation contractors with more than 25 years’ worldwide experience in the treatment of contaminated soil, sediment and groundwater using both in-situ and ex-situ technologies (on and off site). Projects undertaken range from small petrol station clean-ups to large-scale, complex, multidisciplinary remediation schemes. Jim McNeilly General Manager UK Tel: 07713 121839 Email: mcneilly.james@deme-group. com Web: http://deme-group.com/dec
Campbell Reith
Campbell Reith is an independent firm of consulting engineers providing structural, civil, environmental, geotechnical, highways and transportation services. With a reputation for producing imaginative and cost effective design solutions, we are recognised by our clients as a firm of innovative and pragmatic thinkers James Clay Partner Tel: 01737 784500 Email: jamesclay@campbellreith.com Web: www.campbellreith.com
Ecologia
Ecologia is a multi-disciplinary, specialist contaminated land contractor that provides advice and undertakes remediation projects across the UK and Europe. We also have an established and excellent reputation for the construction and operation of in-situ remediation plant for soil and groundwater. Giacomo Maini Managing Director Tel: +44 (0) 1795 471611 Email: g.maini@ecologiaenvironmental.com Web: www.ecologia-environmental.com
ERS
Established in 1994 and wholly employee-owned, ERS is a team of >30 engineers and scientists dedicated to providing the most appropriate and cost-effective remediation of contaminated soils and groundwater. Trusted by property developers, house builders, contractors and consultants; projects range in value from under £5k to >£1m. ERS is Constructionline, CHAS, SMAS, PCA and Achilles registered. Services include: Remediation-oriented ground investigation; treatment of soil and groundwater for contaminants including hydrocarbons, chlorinated solvents, heavy metals and invasive plant species; In-situ and ex-situ remediation by physical, biological, chemical and thermal means; Waste classification and disposal via landfill or soil treatment centres Andrew Mackenzie Managing Director Tel: 0141 772 2789 Email: andew@ersremediation.com Web: www.ersremediation.com
GB Card & Partners
GB Card & Partners is a specialist environmental and civil engineering consultancy with an international reputation for the assessment and remediation of brownfield land. We have been at the forefront in setting industry standards and Government policy in both the UK and overseas, particularly in the compilation of guidance and policy documents for land quality, gas/vapour protection and development on former landfill and gassing sites. The expertise and skill that we bring to a project has enabled our clients to successfully develop award winning schemes. Dr. Geoff Card Managing Director Dixcart House, Addlestone Road, Bourne Business Park, Addlestone, KT15 2LE, Surrey, United Kingdom Tel: 0203 795 9990 Email: gbcard@gbcardandpartners. com Web: www.gbcardandpartners.com
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development+infrastructure
28 | Directory
SPECIAL ISS
GeoStream UK Ltd GeoStream UK is the only single source provider of tried and tested remediation technologies in the UK, offering the full range of physical, chemical and biological treatment techniques for soils and groundwater and exclusive providers of Trap & Treat® (BOS 100® & BOS 200®) and the full range of injectable substrates supplied by Carus Remediation Technologies for the UK and Ireland. Chris Evans Technical Director Tel: 01902 906205 Email: chris.evans@mcauliffegroup.co.uk Web: www.remediation.com
Peter Brett Associates LLP
PBA is an independent practice of engineers, planners, scientists and economists delivering major development and infrastructure projects. We provide trusted advice to create value from the land and buildings owned or operated by our clients. We have a regional spread of offices with a depth of technical skills throughout the UK, including specialists in contaminated land and its remediation. Catherine Copping Associate Tel: 0118 950 0761 Email: ccopping@peterbrett.com Web: http://peterbrett.com
Ramboll John F Hunt
JFHR undertake innovative and sustainable soil and groundwater remediation projects across the UK. We work in a collaborative manner to deliver projects on time and on budget. As part of the wider JFH group, we are able to integrate other disciplines including demolition, civils and infrastructure, and asbestos consultancy. Ben Williams Managing Director Tel: 01227 811826 Email: ben.williams@johnfhunt.co.uk Web: www.johnfhunt.co.uk/
McAuliffe Civil Engineering Ltd
McAuliffe delivers solutions in brownfield site transformation at land acquisition and build-out stages. The business offers a full turnkey service, with core capabilities including soil and groundwater remediation, haulage and materials management, ground improvement and foundation solutions, and demolition services. Lucy Martinez Communications Manager McAuliffe House, Northcott Road, Wolverhampton, WV14 0TP Tel: 01902 354400 Email: lucy@mcauliffegroup.co.uk Web: www.mcauliffegroup.co.uk
Ramboll is a leading engineering, design and consultancy company employing 13,000 experts. Our presence is global with especially strong representation in the Nordics, UK, North America, Continental Europe, Middle East and Asia Pacific. We constantly strive to achieve inspiring and exacting solutions that make a genuine difference to our clients, end-users and society at large. Our globally recognised environment and health practice has earned a reputation for technical and scientific excellence, innovation and client service. Advances in science and technology and evolving regulatory, legal and social pressures create increasingly complex challenges for our clients. We evolve to keep pace with these changes – by adding new services, contributing to scientific advances or expanding geographically. Greg Stoner, Marketing Communications Project Manager Europe & Africa Tel: 01225 748420 Email: gstoner@ramboll.com Web: www.ramboll.com
Sanctus Ltd
Sanctus is a specialist remediation contractor offering solutions for all issues associated with brownfield land development, including a wide range of in-situ and ex-situ soil and groundwater remediation techniques. Sanctus holds a bespoke environmental permit for the onsite treatment of hazardous waste and is also a licensed asbestos contractor. Peter Cooke Managing Director Tel: 01453 828222 Email: pcooke@sanctusltd.co.uk Web: www.sanctusltd.com
Shawcity Ltd
Shawcity is an independent business focused on bringing the latest technology from the world’s leading manufacturers to the UK and Ireland. We enable customers working in Environmental, Occupational Hygiene and Health & Safety applications to achieve the highest levels of monitoring performance. We have the UK’s largest hire fleet of GasClams, the world’s first in-situ borehole gas monitor which gives high frequency unmanned data readings for up to three months at a time. Manufacturer-trained and approved, our technical team also offer in-house servicing, calibration, repairs and training as well as unlimited technical support. Elliot Rosher Product Specialist Manager Tel: 01793 780622 Email: elliot.rosher@shawcity.co.uk Web: www.shawcity.co.uk
Soil and Water Solutions Ltd
S&WS Ltd is a licensed specialist environmental and enabling works contractor providing sustainable in-situ and ex-situ remediation, bulk excavation and disposal/recycling using our own plant, on time and budget. Our in-house expertise enables delivery of bespoke brownfield solutions for treatment of contaminants including hydrocarbons, asbestos and Japanese Knotweed, nationwide. Paul Garrett Remediation Manager Tel: 020 3667 8666 Email: paul.garrett@ soilandwatersolutions.com Web: http://soilandwatersolutions.com
Soilfix Limited
Soilfix is an award-winning remediation solutions provider to the development, industrial, commercial and public sectors. Our mission is “to understand and manage risk in the ground”. Soilfix has developed an outstanding track record for delivering innovative remedial solutions for contaminated and brownfield sites. Steve Jackson Director Tel: 0117 982 0025 Email: steve@soilfix.co.uk Web: www.soilfix.co.uk
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Susta and d
development+infrastructure SPECIAL ISSUE:
Sustainable housing Strata Geotechnics Van Elle has been providing Ground and development
Investigation (GI) services since 1998 and rebranded the GI division as Strata Geotechnics in 2017. We currently employ approximately 50 staff including engineers and directly employed drilling operatives. Strata Geotechnics is part of the Van Elle Group (PLC) and delivers a comprehensive range of site investigation services to a broad variety of markets, including: transportation, construction, energy, utilities, housing and the environmental sector. We have earned an enviable reputation for providing high quality services throughout the United Kingdom and regularly work with Government agencies, local authorities, Network Rail, main contractors and developers. Andy Johnson Divisional Director Summit Close, Kirkby in Ashfield Nottinghamshire NG17 8GJ Tel: 017733 580 580 Email: info@stratageotechnics.com Web: stratageotechnics.com
Waterman Infrastructure and Environment
Delivers multidisciplinary engineering solutions to the property, construction and redevelopment sectors. Services include site investigations, risk assessment, cost effective remediation and contract management, reporting to facilitate planning conditions discharge, and waste classification advice on excavated materials during development and contract negotiations. Our experience brings strategic advice to minimise risk and costs. Carl Slater Technical Director Pickfords Wharf, Clink Street, London, SE1 9DG Tel: 020 7928 7888 Email: carl.slater@watermangroup. com Web: www.watermangroup.com
4R Group
4R Group is a market leader in organics recycling, restoring brownfield sites across the country to the required end use with little or no cost to the land owner. We can deliver all operational and specialist technical work with our highly experienced teams. Dawn McGrady Sales & Marketing Co-ordinator Control House, A1 Business Park Knottingley Road, Knottingley West Yorkshire WF11 0BU Tel: 0113 232 2400 Email: info@4r-group.co.uk Web: www. 4r-group.co.uk
Directory | 29
| Flood Risk & Control Services Rivelin Bridge Ltd
Rivelin Bridge Ltd is a civil and environmental consultancy working throughout the UK and internationally. We provide engineering and advisory services related to flood resilience, water related development and adaption. Our services include: project development and planning, business case development, stakeholder engagement and scheme promotion, programme and project management, tendering, training and advice. We help you create value by connecting water, people and places. Steven Trewhella Director Tel: 075579 14100 Email: steven.trewhella@ rivelinbridge.com Web: www.rivelinbridge.com
UK Flood Barriers
Since being established in 2007, UK Flood Barriers has grown to become the UK’s leading specialist flood contractor. It provides effective flood defence protection to members of the public, businesses, councils, main scheme contractors and the Environment Agency. UKFB has built an enviable project portfolio delivering world class flood defence solutions which are as effective at an individual property level as they are in large scale community infrastructure projects. Matt Keight Managing Director Tel: 01905 773 282 Email: matt.keight@ ukfloodbarriers.co.uk Web: www.ukfloodbarriers.co.uk
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January 2019, 1pm Flood31 Risk Management: Resilience & Adaptation 5 December 2018, London
Brownfield Land Scotland 2019
EIA webinar
A Cumulative Effects Explainer 12 December 2018, 1pm
6 February 2019, Edinburgh
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Managing the Madness of EIA Significant Effects
Groundwater 2019 27 March 2019, London
Brownfield and Contaminated Land 1 May 2019, Belfast
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Ground Gas 2019 9 May 2019, London
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31 January 2019, 1pm
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Flood Risk Management: Resilience and Adaptation Environment Analyst and Flood Briefing are pleased to announce the new ‘Flood Risk Management: Resilience and Adaptation’ conference, which will take place on 5th December in London. Fully researched and written in discussion with Lead Local Flood Authorities and environmental and flood risk consultants, this one-day conference will look at the regulatory and policy backdrop enabling better flood risk management, including the latest climate projections and changes to FCERM and surface water management, and provide practical strategies to manage the impact of flooding on infrastructure and housing development.
At a glance Holiday Inn, London 5 December 2018
Delegate rate: £440 Additional delegates: £280 Local authority rate: £147
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Brownfield Land Scotland 2019 Brownfield Land Scotland will be returning for the 7th year on 6th February, in Edinburgh, with actionable guidance specifically applicable to the development of brownfield in Scotland. Bringing together local councils, regulatory agencies, consultants and industry, this one-day informative event provides an opportunity to share first-hand experiences and solutions to many contaminated land and groundwater challenges. This conference will leave you with up-to-date information on the implications of a changing planning and policy framework, as well as practical solutions to many of the current challenges faced when risk assessing, remediating and developing brownfield land.
At a glance Edinburgh Training & Conference Venue, Edinburgh
Delegate rate: £387
6 February 2019
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