Projects

Completed

Applied Research and Development

ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (Architecture and the Built Environment)

Sociological economical and environmental impact of energy (Policy and regulation)

Project Contact
Building Research Establishment (BRE) Limited

Standard

DCLG

09 January 2006

30 November 2006

11 months

£97,810

Manufacturing

East of England

DCLG Building regulations research and technical support

Project Contact, Building Research Establishment (BRE) Limited

(BD2533) To gather, interpret and present data to fulfill ODPMs requirement under the Sustainable and Secure Buildings Act 2004 to report to parliament on a biennial basis on the progress of the Building Regulations towards sustainability. Information is to be provided in the form of a good quality draft Parliamentary Report for presentation by ODPM to Parliament on 16 November 2006.

Note project archived & searchable from https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk

The Sustainable and Secure Building Act 2004 (section 6)introduces the requirement for the ODPM to report to parliament on a biennial basis on the progress of the Building Regulations towards sustainability. Research is required to consider methods of baseline measurement and the gathering of information to report on the above with particular reference to aspects specified in section 6 of the Act. The first report is due 16 November 2006. Summary of results: All of the project s original objectives were met and the required outputs prepared. The main issue with this project is the availability of data to meet all of the reporting requirements of Section 6 of the Act. In the case of energy use in dwellings it has been possible to go further than the reporting requirements because of the availability of acquisitions data for energy efficiency measures such as insulation, high efficiency boilers etc. For the non-domestic stock such acquisitions data is not as readily available so the focus was on the main headline KPIs of energy and carbon efficiency of the stock. For the uptake of microgeneration technologies in buildings data is readily available through the Low Carbon Buildings Programme and earlier government grant programmes, but there is still substantial activity outside of these initiatives which is difficult to quantify. In both of these areas though there is an issue of timing, i.e. when data becomes available. For acquisitions data there is usually a delay of 2-3months. Data on applications for microgeneration grants has a comparable time-lag, but confirming the number of technologies actually installed in a given period can take much longer because some applications do not proceed and the need to obtain planning permission for some technologies (e.g. wind turbines) can take several months. There is also a time-lag in the publication of national energy use data (e.g. the 2006 data will not be available until mid-2007) so to calculate energy use in thebuilding stock over the 2-year period required some extrapolation. In terms of reuse of building materials and recycled content in construction projects there are more significant limitations on data availability. The 2004 KPI for % of reused material was based on a 1998 (BigRec) survey, and it was not possible to derive a 2006 KPI because no more recent data was available. The KPI for % recycled content was expressed in two ways (by value and by mass) to reflect the two approaches used by industry, and the resulting 2004 KPIs could only be calculated on half to two-thirds of the total amount of construction products for which data was available. Illustrative KPIs for 2006 were calculated on the basis of industry adopting good and best practice with regard to recycled content. The next section contains recommendations for further work to address limitations of the data, but a recommendation in terms of the reporting requirements of the Act is to consider the inevitabletime delay before databecomes available and to allow up to 6 months after the end of a reporting period before the Parliamentary report is produced. It would also make sense to shift the reporting period slightly so that it covers two full calendar years, e.g. the first 2-year reporting period could have been 2005 and 2006. This matches the period of most data collection activities and simplifies presentation. Another recommendation is that the Parliamentary report should contain more discussion on the limitations of the data, and there may be a need to include explanation of changes to KPIs where appropriate. Much of this was contained in the KPI report but only limited excerpts were included in the Parliamentary report itself. This was highlighted when (D)CLG was trying to understand the reasons for the small increase in carbon emissions during the first 2-year reporting period. Further guidance on this issue was provided

19/11/07