Sustainability in the headlines

Plans to boost Britain’s involvement in Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) by renting out vast caverns under the North Sea to store foreign carbon emissions are being discussed by the government.

The Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) is considering proposals that would also include a multi-billion pound programme to retrofit Britain’s coal-fired power plants for CCS, reports Building.

CSS is a process of reducing CO2 emissions into the atmosphere by recovering up to 90% of the CO2 produced by burning fossil fuels and locking it deep underground.

A new report commissioned by DECC estimates that the retrofitting work could create a £2.4bn a year market and 50,000 UK jobs by 2030. The report doesn’t state where the jobs will come from, but it’s thought most will be in construction, project management and engineering.

Although critics claim the £1bn cost of retrofitting a plant makes the proposals too expensive to be viable, it is thought this cost could be offset by charging other countries to store CO2 in empty oil and gas wells in the North Sea.

BRE’s monopoly on the energy ratings market for non-domestic buildings could be challenged if plans to be unveiled next week are implemented, reports Building.

In a response to the government’s consultation on a Code for Sustainable Buildings (CSB) - legislation designed to bring non-domestic buildings up to zero carbon by 2019 - the UK Green Building Council said it wants the CSB to approve existing ratings methods.

That would mean foreign systems like LEED and Green Star could compete with BREEAM. This contrasts with the Code for Sustainable Homes, which was largely based on BRE’s eco-homes standard.

Finally, Contract Journal (CJ) reports that Barratt has been criticised for encouraging its employees to stuff waste inside the cavities of stud walls rather than recycling it off site.

In a new booklet of cost-saving ideas, the house builder encourages employees to put plasterboard and timber cut-offs into the cavity in wall studs, claiming this will ‘reduce cart-away costs’ and ‘increase wall density.’

Responding to the news, one source from the house building industry told CJ: ‘You wouldn’t want this kind of thing in your own house and you have to remember that the likes of Knauf and British Gypsum offer recycling services for plasterboard. Pretty much all timber can be recycled.’

The National House Building Council added in a statement: ‘Depositing waste into partitions or other voids could have an adverse effect on the in-service performance of the home and would generally be unacceptable.’