NEWS NEWS All the latest news from around the building industry
TRINITY COLLEGE GETS OK FOR SOLAR PANELS
Cambridge University has overcome protests to win permission from city planners to install solar panels as part of the refurbishment of 200-year- old New Court at Trinity College. The Grade I listed Tudor
gothic-style building will also benefi t from improved insulation and a ground source heat pump in a bid to reduce carbon emissions by up to 88%. Cambridge City Council’s
planning committee have backed the proposals in the face of opposition from English Heritage and other protestors, but the government will make the fi nal decision.
BIM ALREADY CUTTING COSTS The government claims to have saved £179m from its construction procurement programme by making better use of digital technologies and reducing waste. Cabinet Offi ce Parliamentary
Secretary Chloe Smith said: ‘We are taking great strides to make government construction faster, cheaper and more innovative.’ She added that Building
Information Modelling (BIM) was already starting to play a role in cutting procurement costs and announced the formation of the BIM 2050 Group aimed at young engineers.
DEC AND EPC CHANGES NOW IN FORCE New requirements for Display Energy Certifi cates (DECs) and Energy Performance Certifi cates (EPCs) came into force on 9 January under changes to the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive. They include the extension of
current requirements for DECs to public buildings above 500m² – previously only buildings larger than 1,000m² were required to display their energy ratings.
www.cibsejournal.com
Osborne letter calls for smarter regulation
Industry leaders call for more incentives for green growth
A number of industry bodies, including CIBSE and the Building & Engineering Services Association (B&ES), have sent George Osborne an open letter demonstrating a ‘remarkable degree of consensus’ over the issues surrounding the potential for ‘green growth’.
A letter signed by senior
fi gures within the organisations makes the case for ‘smarter regulation’ that would drive commercial growth, including: Better incentives for the Green Deal
Reinstatement of consequential improvements
Ringfenced funding for refurbishing public buildings
Improving and extending use of Display Energy Certifi cates
A commitment for all new homes and non-domestic
buildings to be zero carbon from 2016 and 2019 respectively
The coalition of professional and trade organisations was brought together by the UK Green Building Council (UK- GBC) and the letter was timed to complement the Green for Growth campaign, launched by Building magazine and backed by the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and UK-GBC. It stated that the organisations had come together ‘to demonstrate the remarkable degree of consensus that exists across our industry on the potential for “green growth”, which we believe would be instrumental in stimulating economic activity, creating jobs and strengthening our international competitiveness’. It acknowledged that the industry itself would have to ‘take the lead on delivery’, but pointed out that there were some things only the
government could do ‘to address clear and persistent market failures and create a level playing fi eld’.
CIBSE chief executive Stephen Matthews said more measures were needed to stimulate growth in the built environment: ‘There seems to be this misconception that “being green” is a barrier to achieving this growth. It’s a dangerous misconception,’ he said.
‘Instead of spending our cash importing energy, we need to reduce energy demand. We can then spend the money we save on materials and labour for energy effi ciency, creating jobs and keeping the money and the benefi ts within our economy. ‘And if we do not need the
energy, we do not need to generate it, cutting the bill for new power stations to something more affordable than the estimated £110bn,’ added Matthews.
February 2013 CIBSE Journal 7
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