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ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE
Neil Harrison of RS Components (pictured) looks at the scope for energy savings in the public sector’s enormous property portfolio.
GREEN SHOOTS OF RECOVERY
T
hey say the first step to dealing with a problem is recognising that it exists. That is why we should all welcome a report from
Parliament that has found that – currently - a third of government offices achieve an energy performance rating of ‘G’, the lowest point
on the seven point scale for Display Energy Certificates (DECs). Although these are disappointing results at first sight, at least it means
that the public sector is aware of the issues that it faces. Indeed, awareness has been growing for some time in line with cross-party
policy on the environmental impact of buildings. Why else would building design feature so prominently in the last two budget speeches? Why
else would the secretary of state at the Department of Energy and Climate Change announce plans to cut the energy use of UK buildings by
80 per cent by 2050, as he did recently?
These announcements are both welcome and timely, coming as they do in the midst of the ongoing debate
about the environment, fuelled in the case of our building stock by changes to the BREEAM assessment method,
the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD)
and the Energy Performance Certificates (EPCs) that are
its most widely talked about element.
Just how seriously the Government is now taking the
design and management of its building stock can be
gauged by the outcome of a meeting of the Public Sector
Accounts Committee last year, where it was revealed
that central Government property was up to 50 per cent
less efficient than that of the private sector. This
conclusion was based on a report ‘Improving the
efficiency of central government’s use of office property’
which showed how greater understanding of how
buildings could operate could yield up to £326 million in savings.
In fact, the government target is even higher than that. According to the OGC website:
‘High Performing Property is the five year strategy for improving the efficiency and
effectiveness of the management and use of the government estate, and for achieving a
more sustainable estate. Benefits from the programme are estimated to be worth
between £1billion-1.5billion per annum by April 2013 on an estate that costs around £6billion a year to run.’
So there is already a great deal of scope for the public sector to transform the way it manages buildings across an enormous real estate
portfolio and a great deal of optimism that all of the parties will vigorously pursue the same goals. The additional good news is that there are
already signs that this is well under way and the government departments and buildings at the centre of the latest report are already taking steps
to reduce their energy use substantially.
What is particularly heartening in the light of recent announcements is that this is largely a matter of education and approach. We should never
underestimate the challenges in supplanting entrenched ideas, but at least the underlying argument has already been won - partly in the private
sector but increasingly in a greater awareness generated by recent reports and surveys in the public sector.
What will be interesting to see now is how these issues are resolved in the longer term. This will certainly require a very sophisticated
approach from buyers and suppliers alike. Not least because we now understand very well how environmental objectives are intertwined with
procurement decisions, building design, facilities management and space planning.
Of course all of this is made more complex by the size and diversity of the public sector
property portfolio. But just it is complex does not make it daunting. Companies like RS
Components and our partners in both the public and private sector already know what to do.
Much of the work will focus necessarily on working within the existing building stock and a
large part of the solution here is good management, ranging from encouraging employees to
turn off lights and equipment when not in use to encouraging managers not to run heating and
cooling systems simultaneously.
As well as good management practice, there are additional technological measures that can
reap immediate benefits including the greater use energy monitors, lighting controls, low
energy lights including the new generation of LEDs, thermal imaging (to quickly identify
sources of waste), air conditioning controls and so on. Many of these measures are already
under way in the public sector and private sector alike and they are very
welcome indeed.
This is an outstanding opportunity for professionals such as building and facilities managers
and engineers to demonstrate the real value they add to organisations. And, of course, it’s an
outstanding opportunity for organisations such as RS Components to demonstrate the added value of the cutting edge technologies and systems
we now have available to us all to help us to save energy in whatever sort of organisation or building we work.
More information
www.rswww.com/buildings
Reader Reply No 21
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