Demonstrating the importance of criteria and sub-criteria in building assessment methods

Building assessment methods have become a popular research field since the early 1990s. An international tool which allows the assessment of buildings in all regions, taking into account differences in climates, topographies and cultures does not yet exist. This paper aims to demonstrate the importance of criteria and sub-criteria in developing a new potential building assessment method for Saudi Arabia. Recently, the awareness of sustainability has been increasing in developing countries due to high energy consumption, pollution and high carbon foot print. There is no debate that assessment criteria have an important role to identify the tool’s orientation. However, various aspects influence the criteria and sub-criteria of assessment tools such as environment, economic, social and cultural to mention but a few. The author provides an investigation on the most popular and globally used schemes: BREEAM, LEED, Green Star, CASBEE and Estidama in order to identify the effectiveness of the different aspects of the assessment criteria and the impacts of these criteria on the assessment results; that will provide a solid foundation to develop an effective sustainable assessment method for buildings in Saudi Arabia. Initial results of the investigation suggest that each country needs to develop its own assessment method in order to achieve desired results, while focusing upon the indigenous environmental, economic, social and cultural conditions. Keywords: Assessment methods, BREEAM, LEED, Green Star, CASBEE, Estidama, sustainability, sustainable buildings, Environment, Saudi Arabia.

New evidence on the green building rent and price premium

This paper investigates the effect of voluntary eco-certification on the rental and sale prices of US commercial office properties. Hedonic and logistic regressions are used to test whether there are rental and sale price premiums for LEED and Energy Star certified buildings. The results of the hedonic analysis suggest that there is a rental premium of approximately 6% for LEED and Energy Star certification. A sale price premium of approximately 35% was found for 127 price observations involving LEED rated buildings and 31% for 662 buildings involving Energy Star rated buildings. When compared to samples of similar buildings identified by a binomial logistic regression for LEED-certified buildings, the existence of a rent and sales price premium is confirmed albeit with differences regarding the magnitude of the premium. Overall, the results of this study confirm that LEED and Energy Star buildings exhibit higher rental rates and sales prices per square foot controlling for a large number of location- and property-specific factors.

Green noise or green value? Measuring the price effects of environmental certification in commercial buildings

This paper investigates the price effects of environmental certification on commercial real estate assets. It is argued that there are likely to be three main drivers of price differences between certified and non-certified buildings. First, certified buildings offer a bundle of benefits to occupiers relating to business productivity, image and occupancy costs. Second, due to these occupier benefits, certified buildings can result in higher rents and lower holding costs for investors. Third, certified buildings may require a lower risk premium. Drawing upon the CoStar database of US commercial real estate assets, hedonic regression analysis is used to measure the effect of certification on both rent and price. We first estimate the rental regression for a sample of 110 LEED and 433 Energy Star as well as several thousand benchmark buildings to compare the sample to. The results suggest that, compared to buildings in the same metropolitan region, certified buildings have a rental premium and that the more highly rated that buildings are in terms of their environmental impact, the greater the rental premium. Furthermore, based on a sample of transaction prices for 292 Energy Star and 30 LEED-certified buildings, we find price premia of 10% and 31% respectively compared to non-certified buildings in the same metropolitan area

New radiocarbon accelerator dates on artefacts from the early Mesolithic site of Star Carr, North Yorkshire

For the well-known early Mesolithic site of Star Carr, dating of organic artefacts by accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) has been hampered by treatment of bone and antler recovered during the original excavations with preservatives. Some, untreated, artefacts were, however, collected after Clark's excavation in 1950. Four of these artefacts were AMS dated in 1995, but two of the dates were significantly younger than the others, and were questionable due to their low collagen yields. These suspect samples have now been re-analysed, demonstrating that all four artefacts are of similar date. The significance of these dates for the chronology of Star Carr is discussed.

A comparison of the role of two blue-green algae in THM and HAA formation

The contribution of two blue-green algae species, Anabaeria flos-aquae and Microcystis aeruginosa, to the formation of trihalomethanes (THMs) and haloacetic acids (HAAs) was investigated. The experiments examined the formation potential of these disinfection by-products (DBPs) from both algae cells and extracellular organic matter (EOM) during four algal growth phases. Algal cells and EOM of Anabaena and Microcystis exhibited a high potential for DBP formation. Yields of total THMs (TTHM) and total HAAs (THAA) were closely related to the growth phase. Reactivity of EOM from Anabaena was slightly higher than corresponding cells, while the opposite result was found for Microcystis. Specific DBP yields (yield/unit C) of Anabaena were in the range of 2-11 mu mol/mmol C for TTHM and 217 mu mol/mmol C for THAA, while those of Microcystis were slightly higher. With regard to the distributions of individual THM and HAA compounds, differences were observed between the algae species and also between cells and EOM. The presence of bromide shifted the dominant compounds from HAAs to THMs. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

The impact of fallowing and green manuring on soil conditions and the growth of sugarcane

There are currently concerns within some sugar industries that long-term monoculture has led to soil degradation and consequent yield decline. An investigation was conducted in Swaziland to assess the effects of fallowing and green manuring practices, over a seven-month period, on sugarcane yields and the physical properties of a poorly draining clay soil. In the subsequent first sugarcane crop after planting, yields were improved from 129 t ha(-1) under continuous sugarcane to 141-144 t ha(-1) after fallowing and green manuring, but there were no significant responses in the first and second ratoon crops. Also, in the first crop after planting, root length index increased from 3.5 km m(-2) under continuous sugarcane to 5.2-6.8 km m(-2) after fallowing, and improved rooting was still evident in the first ratoon crop where there had been soil drying during the fallow period. Soil bulk density, total porosity and water-holding capacity were not affected by the fallowing practices. However, air-filled porosity increased from 11% under continuous sugarcane to 16% after fallowing, and steady state ponded infiltration rates were increased from 0.61 mm h(-1) to 1.34 mm h(-1), but these improvements were no longer evident after a year back under sugarcane. Levels of soil organic matter were reduced in all cases, probably as a result of the tillage operations involved. In the plant crop, root length was well correlated with air-filled porosity, indicating the importance of improving belowground air supply for crop production on poorly draining clay soils.

Presubmergence and green manure affect the transformations of nitrogen-15-labeled urea under lowland soil conditions

The effect of presubmergence and green manuring on various processes involved in [N-15]-urea transformations were studied in a growth chamber after [N-15]-urea application to floodwater. Presubmergence for 14 days increased urea hydrolysis rates and floodwater pH, resulting in higher NH3 volatilization as compared to without presubmergence. Presubmergence also increased nitrification and subsequent denitrification but lower N assimilation by floodwater algae caused higher gaseous losses. Addition of green manure maintained higher NH4+-N concentration in floodwater mainly because of lower nitrification rates but resulted in highest NH3 volatilization losses. Although green manure did not affect the KCl extractable NH4+-N from applied fertilizer, it maintained higher NH4+-N content due to its decomposition and increased mineralization of organic N. After 32 days about 36.9% (T-1), 23.9% (T-2), and 36.4% (T-3) of the applied urea N was incorporated in the pool of soil organic N in treatments. It was evident that the presubmergence has effected the recovery of applied urea N.

Implications of Commons Act 2006 for the registration of land as a town or village green

This paper describes the main changes of Commons Act 2006 for the registration of land as a town or village green. The purpose of the Commons Act 2006 is to protect common land and promote sustainable farming, public access to the countryside and the interests of wildlife. The changes under s15 of the Commons Act 2006 include the additional 2-year grace period for application, discounting statutory period of closure, correction of mistakes in registers, disallowing severance of rights, voluntary registration, replacement of land in exchange and some other provisions. The transitional provision contained in s15(4) Commons Act 2006 is particularly a cause for controversy as DEFRA has indicated buildings will have to be taken down where development has gone ahead and a subsequent application to register the land as a green is successful, obliging the developer to return the land to a condition consistent with the exercise by locals of recreational rights, which sums up that it would be harder in future to develop land which has the potential to be registered as a town or village green.