Spreading the word

The problem with sustainability is that it's such a difficult subject to grasp. Even within the field of building services where discussions about sustainability are now commonplace, there is difficulty with definitions. Little wonder then that it is difficult to persuade construction clients to take the sustainable option, when none of us is really sure what that is!

There is increasing pressure from legislation on companies to make their strategies more sustainable. But where do you start? The Building Research Establishment has been developing two very different programmes over the past year which both aim to help organisations adopt more sustainable strategies and technologies.

At the 'beginner' level, is BRE's Managing Sustainable Construction (MaSC) project. The sub-title of this programme is 'profiting from sustainability'. Max Halliwell of the BRE MaSC team says: "This is a getting started tool; and introduction to sustainability. A lot of people are having difficulty understanding what sustainability is. They want to know how they should start looking at it, and how they can become more sustainable."

The MaSC process starts with a self-assessment matrix covering six key areas of achieving sustainable business: strategy, responsibility, planning, communication, implementation and auditing. Companies rate themselves according to what level they are currently achieving. For example, under strategy, an organisation operating with a sustainable strategy would have 'published policy, with targets, reviews and active commitment'. At the opposite end of the scale, there is 'no written policy'. Under implementation, the most sustainable company would have 'procedures and benchmarking promoted and updated'. The most basic achievement is 'compliance with regulated issues only'.

"The matrix shows where we are now, and where we could go in the future. Most people think sustainability is all or nothing – you're either sustainable or you're not. But we see it as a series of small steps," says Halliwell.

One important aspect of MaSC is that the process takes the form of a series of workshops. Organisations are encouraged to take a cross-section of their employees, from managing director to the shop floor. This makes for more realistic feedback on the matrix – it has been found that managing directors often think their companies are more sustainable than they are!

The MaSC process recommends nominating a champion for sustainability at board level, with a small team to oversee the development and implementation of strategy. Halliwell says: "MaSC is a strategic management tool to make sure sustainability is incorporated within the company strategy, rather than just tagging it on at the end."

The MaSC process does not identify exactly what sustainability is and attempt to move all organisations towards that. Instead, it offers a framework for thinking about sustainability and enables organisations to work out their own sustainable plans from that.

MaSC is designed for those who haven't yet considered sustainability in detail. And its aim is to bring sustainability into organisational strategy. But what about use of sustainable technologies which are currently available?

Out of the laboratory
Another BRE team is working on the Integrating New and Renewable Energy in Buildings (INREB). This is a Faraday project, which involves an alliance of organisations. Faraday partnerships aim to improve the competitiveness of UK industry through research, development, transfer and exploitation of new and improved science and technology.

Paul Evans, partnership director of INREB says: "There are currently 24 Faraday partnerships, and we are the only one working in the built environment." This makes INREB a unique project in the area of sustainability technology issues.

The aim of the project is to take sustainable technologies out of the laboratory, and move them towards regular use in buildings. "The project is about technology transfer; trying to pull the technology from the research base into industry to encourage people to apply them. We are also trying to raise awareness of these technologies in industry," says Evans. This involves a two-way exchange of knowledge between academics and the construction industry. Some technologies are nearer to 'regular use' than others for example heat pumps are more often considered than intelligent facades or integrated wind power.

The INREB project has identified a number of technologies, where they are on the path to integration in buildings, and which target groups should be involved in helping develop these technologies.

"At the outset, we tried to find a framework that everyone in the partnership could be part of. We developed a simple map of what we are trying to do. Four themes emerged: planning and legislation; fabric and envelope; systems; and infrastructure," explains Evans.

Four universities are involved in the project: De Montfort; Ulster, Nottingham, Loughborough – and each has responsibility for one of these themes. There are many sustainable technologies identified for consideration in this project. They range from the familiar: passive design, chp, heat pumps, intelligent controls; to the not so familiar: fuel cells, hybrid systems, hydrogen economy.

The four key themes are also related to the construction industry. "We have related the framework to the construction process by which buildings get built: project inception, planning, choice of fabric, systems issues, on to site, and infrastructure," says Evans. "This has allowed us to think about the INREB technologies that we are interested in. We have also looked at the specification process, which allowed us to get a feel for which technologies are nearer and which are further away from being regularly specified."

And into buildings
Using this approach, the INREB team have also identified the key targets for information on which technologies. Evans says: "Glazing or pvs are integrated into the fabric and the envelope. A heat pump is inserted into the system. This allowed us to think about which technologies are relevant to our target groups."

The INREB project has now moved into its next phase which is looking at types of buildings. In consultation with industry, the team came up with five 'building scenarios': sustainable urban block, existing high density housing estates, large scale communities, suburbia, commercial, retail and industrial.

The aim now is to build forums made up of industry representatives. These groups will receive information and knowledge from INREB so that they become more able to specify the new sustainable technologies within their area of building. "This will then throw up new areas of research for us to feed back to the universities. We are trying to create a cyclic approach," says Evans.

Both projects aim to take the risk out of sustainability. While neither gives a definition of the subject, that isn't their purpose. Instead of chasing semantics, they tackle the real problem of encouraging organisations to think about sustainability as part of business strategy not an add on. INREB takes a highly practical approach to moving sustainable technologies out of the lab and into everyday use. This kind of education is what is needed if the UK is to meet the government targets for sustainable buildings, and also to encourage the growth of our own sustainable technology sector.