Energy efficiency, resilience to future climates and long-term sustainability: the role of the built environment

Just under half of all energy consumption in the UK today takes place indoors, and over a quarter within our homes. The challenges associated with energy security, climate change and sustainable consumption will be overcome or lost in existing buildings. A background analysis, and the scale of the engineering challenge for the next three to four decades, is described in this paper.

Energy efficiency, resilience to future climates and long-term sustainability: the role of the built environment.

Just under half of all energy consumption in the UK today takes place indoors, and over a quarter within our homes. The challenges associated with energy security, climate change and sustainable consumption will be overcome or lost in our existing buildings. A background analysis, and the scale of the engineering challenge for the next three to four decades, is described in this paper.

Sustainable buildings need integrated teams

This report is intended to contribute to strengthening the work of the Government, the Strategic Forum and the Specialist Engineering Alliance in bringing about a more integrated and a more sustainable industry. Its aim is to examine the potential for improving the sustainability of the built environment through an integrated approach to procurement and delivery, in which the role of the specialist engineering sector is recognised for its vital ability to improve building performance. Based on wide ranging knowledge and expertise across the construction sector, it puts forward a vision for sustainable buildings and sets out the actions needed from Government, clients, consultants, contractors and manufacturers to ensure the vision is realised. The report complements the Strategy for Sustainable Construction published by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (June 2008).

The role for low carbon electrification technologies in poverty reduction and climate change strategies: A focus on renewable energy mini-grids with case studies in Nepal, Peru and Kenya

As a potential poverty reduction and climate change strategy, this paper considers the advantages and disadvantages of using renewable energy technologies for rural electrification in developing countries. Although each case must be considered independently, given a reliable fuel source, renewable energy mini-grids powered by biomass gasifiers or micro-hydro plants appear to be the favoured option due to their lower levelised costs, provision of AC power, potential to provide a 24. h service and ability to host larger capacity systems that can power a wide range of electricity uses. Sustainability indicators are applied to three case studies in order to explore the extent to which sustainable welfare benefits can be created by renewable energy mini-grids. Policy work should focus on raising awareness about renewable energy mini-grids, improving institutional, technical and regulatory frameworks and developing innovative financing mechanisms to encourage private sector investments. Establishing joint technology and community engagement training centres should also be encouraged. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.

Exploring key sustainable development themes through learning activities

Purpose: The paper examines how a number of key themes are introduced in the Masters programme in Engineering for Sustainable Development at Cambridge University through student centred activities. These themes include dealing with complexity, uncertainty, change, other disciplines, people, environmental limits, whole life costs, and trade-offs. Design/methodology/approach: The range of exercises and assignments designed to encourage students to test their own assumptions and abilities to develop competencies in these areas are analysed by mapping the key themes onto the formal activities which all students undertake throughout the core MPhil programme. The paper reviews the range of these activities that are designed to help support the formal delivery of the taught programme. These include residential field courses, role plays, change challenges, games, systems thinking, multi criteria decision making, awareness of literature from other disciplines and consultancy projects. An axial coding approach to the analysis of routine feedback questionnaires drawn from recent years has been used to identify how student’s own awareness develops. Also results of two surveys are presented which tests the students’ perceptions about whether or not the course is providing learning environments to develop awareness and skills in these areas. Findings: Students generally perform well against these tasks with a significant feature being the mutual support they give to each other in their learning. The paper concludes that for students from an engineering background it is an holistic approach to delivering a new way of thinking through a combination of lectures, class activities, assignments, interactions between class members, and access to material elsewhere in the University that enables participants to develop their skills in each of the key themes. Originality /value: The paper provides a reflection on different pedagogical approaches to exploring key sustainable themes and reports students own perceptions of the value of these kinds of activities. Experiences are shared of running a range of diverse learning activities within a professional practice Masters programme.

A literature and practice review to develop sustainable business model archetypes

Eco-innovations, eco-efficiency and corporate social responsibility practices define much of the current industrial sustainability agenda. While important, they are insufficient in themselves to deliver the holistic changes necessary to achieve long-term social and environmental sustainability. How can we encourage corporate innovation that significantly changes the way companies operate to ensure greater sustainability? Sustainable business models (SBM) incorporate a triple bottom line approach and consider a wide range of stakeholder interests, including environment and society. They are important in driving and implementing corporate innovation for sustainability, can help embed sustainability into business purpose and processes, and serve as a key driver of competitive advantage. Many innovative approaches may contribute to delivering sustainability through business models, but have not been collated under a unifying theme of business model innovation. The literature and business practice review has identified a wide range of examples of mechanisms and solutions that can contribute to business model innovation for sustainability. The examples were collated and analysed to identify defining patterns and attributes that might facilitate categorisation. Sustainable business model archetypes are introduced to describe groupings of mechanisms and solutions that may contribute to building up the business model for sustainability. The aim of these archetypes is to develop a common language that can be used to accelerate the development of sustainable business models in research and practice. The archetypes are: Maximise material and energy efficiency; Create value from 'waste'; Substitute with renewables and natural processes; Deliver functionality rather than ownership; Adopt a stewardship role; Encourage sufficiency; Re-purpose the business for society/environment; and Develop scale-up solutions. © 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The adoption of sustainable remediation behaviour in the US and UK: a cross country comparison and determinant analysis.

The sustainable remediation concept, aimed at maximizing the net environmental, social, and economic benefits in contaminated site remediation, is being increasingly recognized by industry, governments, and academia. However, there is limited understanding of actual sustainable behaviour being adopted and the determinants of such sustainable behaviour. The present study identified 27 sustainable practices in remediation. An online questionnaire survey was used to rank and compare them in the US (n=112) and the UK (n=54). The study also rated ten promoting factors, nine barriers, and 17 types of stakeholders' influences. Subsequently, factor analysis and general linear models were used to determine the effects of internal characteristics (i.e. country, organizational characteristics, professional role, personal experience and belief) and external forces (i.e. promoting factors, barriers, and stakeholder influences). It was found that US and UK practitioners adopted many sustainable practices to similar extents. Both US and UK practitioners perceived the most effectively adopted sustainable practices to be reducing the risk to site workers, protecting groundwater and surface water, and reducing the risk to the local community. Comparing the two countries, we found that the US adopted innovative in-situ remediation more effectively; while the UK adopted reuse, recycling, and minimizing material usage more effectively. As for the overall determinants of sustainable remediation, the country of origin was found not to be a significant determinant. Instead, organizational policy was found to be the most important internal characteristic. It had a significant positive effect on reducing distant environmental impact, sustainable resource usage, and reducing remediation cost and time (p<0.01). Customer competitive pressure was found to be the most extensively significant external force. In comparison, perceived stakeholder influence, especially that of primary stakeholders (site owner, regulator, and primary consultant), did not appear to have as extensive a correlation with the adoption of sustainability as one would expect.