An Edge seminar conducted under the Chatham House Rule.

Themes include:
— Third generation environmentalism
— “Highly developed sense of ethical foreign policy”
— Force from inside UK government to push up ambition in contested space
— Climate change off the boil: politicians hugely distracted
— The lack of political momentum behind the climate change agenda
— Monumental strategic setback resulting from the Copenhagen COP15

Debate held: 2 November 2011
Institution of Chemical Engineers, London W1

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Notes of the debate (pdf)

The UK construction industry consumes some 400mt of construction materials annually and accounts for nearly 30% of UK road freight. Home produced material for construction is significant accounting for 20% of the UK’s manufactured goods at the same time as exporting 10% of output.

However, in the last decade imported building material to the UK nearly doubled and now represents over 25% of all construction materials/products used in the UK.

Should we be reducing our reliance on imported building materials? Is it possible to produce more with less in the UK construction industry? Where will the materials required to retrofit our existing building stock in the UK come from?

Chair:         Dr Scott Steedman CBE – BRE Global

Speakers:      Jane Thornback, Construction Products Association


                   Gillian Hobbs, BRE


                   Hugh Mulcahey, Buro Happold


                   John White, CEO Timber Trade Federation

Downloads: Debate notes (pdf)

To meet sustainability challenges, let alone government targets, new and existing buildings will need to perform radically better in use: as sustainable assets, for their occupiers, and for the environment. However, regulatory and market mechanisms promoting sustainable buildings have had limited success in terms of recent outcomes. In use, many buildings that followed the rules and ticked the boxes have been shown to have major differences between expectation and reality.

To resolve this, the construction industry will need to provide a very different service, with better coherence of design intent and greater attention to detail. It will need to focus on actual outcomes, with far more follow-through and feedback.

In this age of austerity, how can these changes occur? Anything new is often seen as an unaffordable extra and government in particular finds it difficult to invest. Can markets, technologies or regulation deliver? What are the impacts for the roles and responsibilities of building professionals and their institutions? Can the concept of professionalism be linked to performance outcomes? What possible unintended consequences should we be alert to?

Debate held: 15 September 2011
Lecture Hall, RICS, Parliament Square, London SW1

Chair:
Rab Bennetts - Bennetts Associates

Speakers:
Prof Matthew Bacon - Conclude Consultancy and University of Sheffield
Alan Crane – 3Cs Construction Consultancy
Bill Bordass – Usable Buildings Trust
Stephen Hill – C20 Futureplanners

Downloads:

Notes of the debate (pdf)

RICS introduction - Dan Cook (pdf)
Speaker presentation - Matthew Bacon (pdf)
Speaker presentation - Bill Bordass (pdf)
Speaker presentation - Stephen Hill (pdf)

The Edge debate held in Bristol was the first in a series of CIBSE Presidential debates to be held across the country during 2011-12. The debate focused on the twin challenges of reducing emissions from buildings by 80% by 2050 while reducing the costs of new buildings by 20% rather sooner.

Chair :        Andy Ford - CIBSE President and Mott MacDonald Fulcrum

Speakers: Bill Bordass - Usable Buildings Trust

                   Professor Doug King – King Shaw Associates

                 Mike Roberts – Ambassador UKGBC, Director Vertigo SDC           

Downloads: Debate notes

Findings from the Carbon Trust’s low carbon building accelerators programme

Wednesday 20th April 2011, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

For the last 5 years the Carbon Trust has been following 28 case study projects from both the Department of Energy and Climate Change’s Low Carbon Buildings Programme and their own work on low carbon refurbishment, in most cases from design right through and into operation. The projects cover many sectors including retail, education, offices, other public sector buildings and mixed-use residential buildings.

The lessons and insights learnt from the large amount of qualitative and quantitative data collected on these projects have been recently published by the Carbon Trust in 12 standalone reports dealing with issues including the gap between design and performance, metering and monitoring, retrofitting renewables and managing risk.

The Debate reviewed the lessons learned from the research programme and interrogated the way forward

Chair:         Liz Peace, British Property Federation

Speakers: Will Ray, The Carbon Trust

                   Kevin Couling, AECOM

                   David Adams, Zero Carbon Hub & Willmott Dixon

Downloads: Debate notes

here are encouraging signs in a number of schools of architecture and engineering of a shift towards placing sustainability and interdisciplinarity at the centre of their courses. However, there are many distractions and barriers such as the lack of any evidence base, a focus on designing the new, an inadequate understanding of value, a lack of knowledge of Building Engineering Physics, weak communication skills, the continuing myth of the star architect and a surplus of architectural students at the expense of engineers.

At this time of general economic uncertainty and mass demonstrations about fees, it seems good to celebrate some real changes that are happening in our schools of architecture and engineering and to challenge the status quo.

The Government’s Chief Construction Advisor, Paul Morrell, recently published the Innovation & Growth Team’s report Low Carbon Construction for BIS in which he challenges both Government and the construction industry to seize the moment. The Edge is keen to pick up the challenges facing not just architects but all built environment professionals and all constructors working towards integrated interdisciplinary working and a low energy/zero carbon world.

Debate held: 11 January 2011
The Building Centre, London

Chair:
Dr Frank Duffy DEGW

Speakers:
Duane Passman – Brighton & Sussex University, and Visiting Professor at Salford University
Lorraine Landels – Buro Happold
Matthew Bacon – Eleven Informatics, Visiting Professor at Salford University
Prof Robert Mull – London Metropolitan University
Dr Fionn Stevenson - Oxford Brookes University
Prof Richard Parnaby - University of rthe West of England

Downloads:

Notes of the debate (pdf)