Low Carbon Awards Winners
Measuring up
This year’s winners of the CIBSE Low
Carbon Awards provide plenty of grounds
for optimism that the profession is fi rmly
on the right sustainability path
F
rom individual houses to large infrastructure consumption to make the most effective improvements.
projects, the entries for this year’s Low Carbon Simons used its on-site facilities team and sub-metered
Performance Awards provided evidence that the distribution boards in their headquarters building, which
energy performance of existing buildings is fi nally demonstrated that the group was wasting up to 40 tonnes
getting the attention it urgently needs. of CO2 a year through poor management of ‘small power’
CIBSE’s 100 Hours of Carbon Clean-up campaign (lighting, PCs, and so on). The campaign enabled Simons
during 2008 placed the focus fi rmly on the ‘nitty-gritty’ to promote different patterns of use throughout the staff,
of energy effi ciency and carbon cutting. The idea was for which led to the building rising from a probable D rating
individuals to feel empowered to take decisions, and to feel to a B on the Display Energy Certifi cate (DEC) the fi rm is
that their efforts were making a difference. about to voluntarily commission.
The campaign took place against the backdrop of the Similarly, BDP in Belfast, which won the Best Campaign
government sleepwalking away from where the main Award for an SME (small to medium-sized enterprise)
focus for combating climate change needs to be. While the set about using the campaign to “permanently change
building services industry continues to argue for a major employee behaviour” on the back of an innovative ‘12-a-
focus on existing buildings to dramatically cut energy day’ message: 12 sustainable actions for each member of
demand, politicians are fixated on new nuclear power staff, with each action averaging one minute.
stations and offshore wind farms to try to plug our ever- Actions included reusing and recycling paper/plastic
widening energy gap. cups; adopting the ‘cardigan culture’ (putting on another
However, this year’s awards suggest that the industry’s layer of clothing rather than turning up the heating); and
efforts are starting to pay off. A perfect example of this taking the bus to work or car sharing. BDP actually exceeded
is Sigrid Stagl and Peter Kaufmann’s work that won a number of its targets, including reducing heating fuel
Refurbishment Project of the Year. This innovative project consumption by 12 per cent – above expectations.
takes the energy fi ght right to the front line by showing that The advent of new regulatory tools, although launched
real improvements can be made in the thousands of typical amidst much confusion, should eventually make the
Victorian houses around the country. industry’s task of measuring energy usage much easier –
Latterly they won the attention of the Energy Minister, but assuming people can be persuaded into making proper use
initially they had to battle the hostility of council planners of them. This was strongly refl ected in this year’s awards
because the house is in a conservation area. Despite with strong entries for the EPC and DEC categories.
everything, Sigrid and Peter were still able to reduce carbon Low Carbon Energy Assessors are nominated for these
emissions by around 72 per cent while also delivering a awards and Energy Performance Certifi cate (EPC) of the
comfortable and attractive refurbishment. Year was won by Richard Hipkiss of i-prophets energy
The biggest challenge was finding suitably skilled services based in Coventry. He was able to persuade his >
contractors to implement the type of work they wanted to do,
so they ended up using different fi rms for separate stages.
And they devised a project webpage to disseminate what
they learned to help improve skills levels across the industry:
The campaign took place against
http://home2.btconnect.com/eco-refurbishment the backdrop of the government
The Best Carbon Saving Programme during the 100
sleepwalking away from where
Hours campaign went to Simons Group of Lincoln. It
was particularly congratulated for demonstrating the
the main focus for combating
importance of measuring and monitoring patterns of energy climate change needs to be
www.cibsejournal.com February 2009 CIBSE Journal 31
CIBSEfeb09pp30-32 awards•.indd 31 5/2/09 14:48:12
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