Abstract
Almost 50% of national energy consumption can be attributed to the operation of buildings. This places an immense burden on natural systems, as a function of increasing extraction and transportation of fossil fuels, and the associated impacts of their combustion. Measures are available to vastly improve energy efficiency in both new and existing buildings, but these opportunities are not being seized. Instead of becoming more efficient, buildings are actually placing an increasing burden on the environment through their profligate use of energy, further compounded by an increase in total floor area. Developed with Carillion Plc on major public sector projects, but applicable to wider construction markets, this thesis presents a design tool, which predicts the energy and cost performance of buildings. Providing a powerful source of information at influential stages of building design, the so called Energy Toolkit opens up new avenues of communication with clients, promoting a more integrated, cross-disciplinary design led approach to energy issues. Clients have testified the strengths this tool has brought to Carillion’s proposals. Energy efficiency in buildings is generally perceived to be expensive, and consequently, a cost that will not be borne by today’s clients and property developers. The thesis demonstrates that best available techniques could reduce energy consumption of buildings in the order of 50%, without requiring significant capital expenditure. Empirical testing on a representative sample of public buildings shows that this could deliver considerable environmental and economic benefits. Barriers to energy efficiency are well documented, and this thesis demonstrates how such barriers can be broken down using actual case studies. Notwithstanding a number of concerning characteristics, new avenues of procurement such as the UK Government’s Private Finance Initiative, represent a good platform from which to expose these barriers, and their effect upon environmental and economic performance.