Labour and Low Energy Buildings: the energy performance gap as Social Practice

Buildings are responsible for approximately 30% of EU end-use emissions (Bettgenhäuser , et al, 2009) and are at the forefront of efforts to meet emissions targets arising from their design, construction and operation. For the first time in its history, construction industry outputs must meet specific energy targets if planned reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are to be achieved through nearly zero energy buildings (nZEB) (EC, 2010) supported by on-site renewable heat and power. Where individual UK dwellings have been tested before occupation to assess whether they meet energy design criteria, the results indicate what is described as an ‘energy performance gap’, that is, energy use is almost always more than that specified. This leads to the conclusion that the performance gap is, inter alia, a function of the labour process and thus a function of social practice. Social practice theory, based on Schatzki’s model (2002), is utilised to explore the performance gap as a result of the changes demanded in the social practice of building initiated by new energy efficiency rules. The paper aims to open a discussion where failure in technical performance is addressed as a social phenomenon.

Accessibility Instruments In Planning Practice: Bridging The Implementation Gap

Accessibility concepts are increasingly acknowledged as fundamental to understand cities and urban regions. Accordingly, accessibility instruments have been recognised as valuable support tools for land-use and transport planning. However, despite the relatively large number of instruments available in the literature, they are not widely used in planning practice. This paper aims to explore why accessibility instruments are not widely used in planning practice. To this end, we focus our research on perceived user-friendliness and usefulness of accessibility instruments. First, we surveyed some instrument developers, providing an overview of the characteristics of accessibility instruments available and on developers’ perceptions of their user-friendliness in planning practice. Second, we brought together developers and planning practitioners in some local workshops across Europe and Australia, where participants were asked to use insights provided by accessibility instruments for the development of planning strategies. We found that most practitioners are convinced of the usefulness of accessibility instruments in planning practice, as they generate new and relevant insights for planners. Findings suggest that not only user-friendliness problems but mainly organisational barriers and lack of institutionalisation of accessibility instruments, are the main causes of the implementation gap. Thus user-friendliness improvement may provide limited contributions to the successful implementation of accessibility concepts in planning practice. In fact, there seems to be more to gain from the active and continued engagement of instrument developers with planning practitioners and the institutionalisation of accessibility planning.