Visiting British expert Roderic Bunn has a sobering message for the ”green” building industry: most buildings with high environmental ratings don’t function as well as promised.
In the US, the warning shots have already been fired, with a $US5 million lawsuit launched against the US Green Building Council. ”Property organisations have accused the GBC of selling green certification,” says Bunn. ”Some people are waking up to the fact they believe they have been miss-sold a rating system that guarantees performance, and the construction industry hasn’t been quick to disabuse them of that notion.
”I’m not saying it [a lawsuit] will happen here or in the UK,” says Bunn, principal consultant of Britain’s Building Services Research and Information Association for 10 years, but he maintains Australian commercial and public sector buildings are suffering the same problems as those in Britain.
”We are piling in often unmanageable complexity into these buildings, so the consequence is unmanageable complexity. It’s the enemy of good performance,” he told BusinessDay during a visit to Melbourne.
”In new buildings, we are trying to drive down energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions, and concentrate on the wrong things.
”We are often trying to do it with innovative technology that requires far more attention in design and construction, and needs aftercare support that it does not get.”
It’s not that the buildings are not well maintained. ”However, the premises’ management often does not understand what it’s been given. The building is rarely finished off property,” he says. ”As buildings get more complex, the commissioning of them is squeezed.”
Bunn was for 16 years editor of the Building Services Journal, the official journal of the Chartered Institute of Building Services Engineers. In this capacity, he received funding from the British government to conduct research into Britain’s most prestigious ”green” buildings.
”We found their energy consumption was far too high, systems were not finished off properly, no one knew how to use them and they were misfiring on a whole range of criteria,” he says.
”We did full energy audits, we knew exactly where the energy was going, such as lighting. Office satisfaction was compromised … occupant surveys showed the buildings were not delivering the comfort, usability and productivity that was assumed.”
Bunn says the construction industries in Britain and Australia take the view that a building is finished on the day of practical completion - ”cut the tape and run away”.
When a client needs professional support in the handover period, it is not there. Some defects are noticed, such as water leaking, a door not hanging properly, or lights that go on and off when they shouldn’t.
”But other shortcomings over time become chronic because nobody notices them and nobody fixes them. The consequence is often energy use that is higher than it should be and poor morale,” he says.
Bunn says there are things the engineer has not thought of - what the client plugs in the wall, communication rooms - and wasteful running. For example, British research showed schools where the lights were on all night. ”It’s not been fine-tuned, so they stay on. No one knows it until they get their electricity bill,” he says.
”We have been seduced by the often false promises of new technologies,” says Bunn, who is sceptical about some of the alleged benefits of renewable energy.
”A building can be mounted with wind turbines or photovoltaics, but they don’t contribute nearly as much as designers think they do because they haven’t driven down the energy requirement to begin with.
”We tend to glue these things on to the outside of building before we have actually reduced the loads of the building as far as we can go.
”The mantra should be, ‘Half the loads, double the efficiencies’. Halve the carbon in the fuel supply before we go anywhere near on-site renewables.
”They are often expensive, small, very complex, and maintenance hungry, and the maintainability of these things is rarely taken into account.”
Also, ”just because energy is renewable doesn’t mean you’re allowed to waste it”.
Bunn’s experiences have led him to set up a company, Soft Landings, a professional service for construction industries around the world. ”The project team should remain engaged for a period of time to tune up the building and get as close to the design targets as they can get. Finish it off properly, follow through,” he says.
”The construction industry is very good at designing dreams but crafting nightmares - and it’s the managers who inherit the nightmares … We can’t afford to have sustainable building not delivering what they are supposed to deliver.
”Builders should be appointed on the basis they will stay engaged for a significant period after occupation to fine tune and perform, monitor the energy use to optimum satisfaction.
”On the basis of that, make changes to the building. If you do that up to three years, then it’s a good idea to have set some real targets in the design stage.
”There is a need for more feedback on how buildings really work. I’ve seen lots of sustainable designs but very few sustainable buildings.”
In Australia, Bunn says NABERS, the energy rating tool for office buildings, and the new mandatory disclosure law will start to reveal the gap between design intention and delivery.
There are very few ”get out of jail for free” sustainable technologies.
”Smart glass, highly insulated cladding systems that allow daylight without the solar heat, are one, if they are designed properly, but they are expensive,” Bunn says. Low-energy light-emitting diodes are another.
”It won’t be long before we have general lighting powered by LEDs. There will be revenge effects we haven’t thought of, but energy consumption for lighting is one of the biggest problems for buildings.”
