Feature
Top Tips: How The UK’s Building Environment Can Prepare For Extreme Weather
By Ross Sheil, SVP at Infogrid
The UK recently experienced its worst recorded case of extreme heat, with some areas of the country reporting scorching temperatures of 40C for the first time ever. Whilst the heatwave caused severe disruptions to general services such as healthcare and travel, the country’s infrastructure and buildings also suffered as a result.
This is because much of the architecture and buildings in the UK have been designed to retain heat. In fact, England’s 25 million homes - some of the oldest in the world - are currently unfit to withstand high temperatures.
With another heatwave this summer, it’s clear that extreme weather will continue as a result of the climate change emergency. The UK’s infrastructure needs an overhaul - and quickly - to adapt to such conditions or else risk affecting occupants’ health and safety. This doesn’t mean tearing down and rebuilding structures, but rather taking advantage of new advancements to retrofit existing buildings.
Here are three top tips businesses should consider to be better prepared when faced with rising temperatures:
1. Understand The Benefits Of Going “Smart”
Given that 80% of buildings that will exist by 2050 already exist, we need to understand more about them now and how they entwine with climate change.
It’s difficult to improve a process if you can’t track it, so being “smarter” is the first building block to ensure that we can address and mitigate the impact of heatwaves over time. However, less than 5% of commercial buildings are smart. In order to make buildings in the UK and around the world healthier, more operationally effective and sustainable, it is necessary to renovate them.
Making buildings “smart” may seem like an overwhelming task, but it is doable if small steps are taken, including using technology systems that are modular and interoperable. The building blocks can and ought to be simple, scalable and affordable, where we
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