NEWS MARKS & SPENCER TRIUMPHS AT BUILDING PERFORMANCE AWARDS
UK heat deaths set to soar
Thousands more people will die this century because of soaring summer heat in London, the South-East and the Midlands, according to medical researchers. Deaths from extreme heat
Marks & Spencer, together with Sustainable Design Solutions, was crowned Carbon Champion at the CIBSE Building Performance Awards last month. The team also scooped the New Build Project of the Year (value over £10m) title after smashing its own carbon reduction targets. For details of all the winners, see our awards brochure and round-up on page 18.
Next year’s CIBSE Building Performance Awards will
open for entries in June. They are free to enter and can be submitted online using templated entry forms. The deadline for entries is 11 September 2014. To receive the latest news and updates about the awards, sign up for the newsletter at
www.cibseawards.org and follow @CIBSEAwards on Twitter.
are anticipated to rise to more than 3,000 by the 2020s, and to 12,500 a year by the 2080s, unless steps are taken to mitigate the impact of rising temperatures. The research – from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Public Health England – uncovered a 2.1% increase in the number of deaths for every 1o
C rise,
Environment Agency targets F-Gas offenders
Agency alarmed by number of DIY installations
The Environment Agency’s Chemical Compliance Team says it is aggressively pursuing people who breach the European F-Gas Regulation that strictly controls the use of refrigerant gases.
Alarmed by the number of DIY heat pump installations and online auction sites offering air conditioning systems for sale to unregulated buyers, enforcement officer Richard Troup told a seminar that the EA wanted to work more closely with contractors and trade bodies to improve enforcement. ‘We can and do get products removed from eBay and other auction sites within hours,’ he told the seminar during the ACR Show in Birmingham. ‘We are also closely monitoring the sale of imported and second hand equipment.’ The F-Gas Regulation seeks to regulate the use of refrigerant gases with global warming potential, and a key plank of the legislation is attempts to ensure only registered
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alongside a finding that the number of ‘hot weather days’ will triple by 2080. Currently about 41,000 people die from winter causes in the UK every year and 2,000 as a result of summer overheating. The authors predicted that – without adaptation – the number of heat-related deaths will increase by 66% in the 2020s, 257% by the 2050s and 535% by the 2080s.
DEC benchmarks are ‘generous’
installers handle equipment containing these gases.
‘The promotion of DIY installation is under close scrutiny and we have contacted a number of firms who promote products as ‘easy to fit’ because, if they require the connection of refrigerant pipework, they fall under the Regulation,’ said Troup.
The EA said it would act on any reports it receives of potential breaches of the
regulation.Troup told the seminar, which was chaired by the B&ES Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Heat Pump
Group, that there was now an opportunity to remove rogue traders from the sector.
‘The industry clearly wanted this regulation and we want to help you create a level playing field for legitimate businesses. You have spent a lot of money making sure you are compliant, so it makes business sense to get rid of those who break the rules.’
EA regulatory specialist Chris Summers added that, simply because there hadn’t been any prosecutions so far, did not mean there wouldn’t be any in the future.
A report by researchers at University College London (UCL) into Display Energy Certificates (DECs) for public buildings, lodged between 2008 and mid- 2012, shows that more than half of those lodged in 12 of the 14 categories are rated D or better. The researchers, Sung-Min Hong and Philip Steadman, suggest this proves that the benchmarks are ‘generous’ and need to be revised. The work was carried out for
CIBSE’s Benchmarks Committee and looked at 73,160 DECs for 31,802 buildings. Comparisons were made against the CIBSE TM46 energy benchmarks, and the statistics were compared with findings of an earlier report to CIBSE by Bruhns, Jones and Cohen (2011) on DECs deposited before 2010. Rates of compliance with the scheme were also estimated, and the classification of building types used by TM46 examined. The report can be accessed at
www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk
March 2014 CIBSE Journal 9
PHOTOHOUSE / SHUTTERSTOCK
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