SUSTAINABILITY
A coherent approach to construction and refit
‘It is difficult to keep up with priorities in these changing and challenging times, but there is still a climate emergency. This is in part driving the greater contact between humans and animals, which, I would argue, leaves the human race open to future pandemics.’ So says Susan Logan, owner of sustainability and energy consultancy, Ecoteric, who discusses the NHS response to climate change, and how ‘at Trust, Board, and project level, there needs to be a clear vision, a process, and a coherent policy, plus a target-driven approach to construction and refit to tackle the challenges’.
This article will consider how construction design and process needs to change, and how it can change to address the climate emergency. The focus will be on policy carrying through to brief, to budget, to appointment, to early stage integrated design, and through to Post-Occupancy Evaluation. It will consider how realistic ‘zero carbon’ is for the NHS, and what the boundary and scope of ‘zero carbon’ might look like. I will also highlight how team appointments and scope need to be organised to put the carbon agenda in a central position, and how schemes such as BREEAM need to be used to promote integrated design. Finally, the article will consider how operational energy and design energy interact, and what the optimum solution is for delivering a building which performs as expected. We may not be able to see the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, but as this article is written, we can perhaps, to quote Churchill, see ‘the beginning of the end’. Unfortunately, we are not even seeing the end of the beginning of a climate change
Spanish flu
Great Depression 35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 1900 1920 Figure 1: Global CO2 1940 1960 Year emissions, 1900 to the present day. 1980 2000 2020 forecast 2020
World War II ends
emergency. No previous pandemic has had such a dramatic impact on emissions of CO2
over the past century as
coronavirus has in a few short months. However, this effect is expected to be short-lived, as nations strive to drive an economic recovery.
Rising global temperatures Even though we will see a massive fall in 2020 (Fig 1), the concentrations of CO2 that are in the atmosphere and warming our planet won’t stabilise until the world reaches net zero.
While these energy sources have transformed the world, the carbon entering our atmosphere has driven up global temperatures by just over 1˚C since the mid-1850s. They could rise by 3-4˚C by the end of this century if CO2 aren’t reduced.
levels
The consequences are stark. Mass extinction of species, more intense weather events, rising sea levels, and relocation of species – possibly leading to more disease jumping between animals
1st and 2nd oil shocks
Soviet Union collapse
Financial crash
and humans, and the overall potential for massive loss of life and livelihoods. As the NHS stands to benefit from increased capital spending, it can be argued that it is the responsibility of all those planning, designing, building, and operating the facilities to address climate change, and ensure that as little carbon is emitted in the course of the process and the life of the building.
Some forward-thinking Trusts and NHS organisations have declared a climate change emergency, and have laudable ambitions to achieve net zero. This is not easy, however, and, as we will see, there needs to be a root and branch approach, as well as a level of realism to attain the best results.
It is very much a people and process matter, and we will explore how to achieve the best outcome in this article.
Where to start?
The best place to start is to know where the end is. Targets are key to success. There is not necessarily a ‘one size fits all’ for targets, but the principles are clear. The targets will come from the vision of the organisation. Policies may need to be updated and signed off at executive level. The policy may need to be expressed in other documents, such as appointments and briefing documents, which will be discussed later in more detail. The action plans and specifications issued by the organisation need to support the vision and strategy. It is well worth undertaking a review to ensure that all outputs from an organisation are coherent and consistent. Even if this is not possible in the short term, it should be clear to anyone engaging in capital planning and works what are the key overarching priorities and vision.
Targets
Targets should be measurable, affordable, and realisable. That does not mean business as usual; a challenging target can
July 2021 Health Estate Journal 17
Source: Global Carbon Project, CDIAC & IEA Billion tonnes of CO2 per year
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