Sustainability assessment guidance

Sustainabilty aspects Sustainability aspects. - 294KB

Policy Context

Key principles

Key principles expanded

1. Project stewardship

2. Supporting communities

3. Using resources effectively

4. Enhancing biodiversity

5. Creating healthy environments

6. Minimising pollution

Features of a sustainable building project

Policy context
Sustainable development was for a long time perceived by many as a restraint on development. It is only recently that it been recognised as seeking restraint on inappropriate development and as a positive driver of improving quality of life for all.

This is increasingly acknowledged by national and international policy aimed at reversing unsustainable trends in a range of sectors, transport, agriculture and energy, as well as construction. Fiscal and regulatory policies are increasingly promoting the right sort of development rather than development for its own sake by taxing pollution and inefficiency, and imposing increasingly higher targets for environmental performance and social responsibility in an effort to raise standards.

Given the contemporary interest in sustainable development it is appropriate that the Big Lottery Fund should encourage and enable applicants to incorporate sustainable development principles into the design of their projects. The UK now desperately needs consequential, quality exemplars of best practice in sustainable development that build on a proper understanding of sustainability, rather than the recent experience of oversimplified rhetoric. The BLF guidelines therefore need to promote and support responses that are pragmatic, reliable, affordable and transferable. As well as facilitating exemplary design quality and construction quality they must also, through design of both buildings and spaces, enable a community simultaneously to improve their quality of life and reduce their adverse environmental impact.

Key principles
Stewardship of projects is a vital and overarching aspect in delivering on these key principles both in the first instance but also in ensuring their performance over time. Too many aspirations for sustainable projects are undermined by failure to:-

• identify appropriate targets, tools and benchmarks;
• consider long term manageability; and
• monitor performance and respond to poor performance.

All the evidence suggests that poor environmental performance will be penalised through regulations in future and the benefits of good performance will be increasingly apparent as economic instruments begin to penalise, and reward, in order to reverse unsustainable trends. Buildings and the built environment will increasingly be required to satisfy a number of criteria, including that they should:

• Support communities – identify and meet the real needs, requirements and aspirations of communities & stakeholders and involve them in key decisions;
• Use resources effectively – not consume a disproportionate amount of resources, including money, energy, water, materials and land during construction, use or disposal; not cause unnecessary waste due to short life, inefficiency, poor design or poor quality construction and manufacturing procedures; and be affordable, manageable and maintainable in use;
• Enhance biodiversity - not use materials from threatened species or environments and improve natural habitats where possible through appropriate planting and water use;
• Create healthy environments  - enhance living, leisure and work environments; not endanger the health of the builders or users, others, through exposure to pollutants toxic materials or harmful organisms.
• Minimise pollution - create minimum dependence on polluting materials, management practices, energy and transport;

Key principles expanded

1. Project stewardship
There is increasing recognition of the need for process tools to support specialist management of the design and construction process, in order to take development aspirations through to successful delivery and beyond into genuine long term sustainability.

It is a significant step forward for sustainable buildings to be recognised as part of a process, rather than simply a product at handover.

The design and delivery process is crucial to proper implementation of sustainable building design and the following process management procedures will assist.

• A management system that extends from concept, through design, site issues, commissioning, handover and management.
• Evidence of tools to establish and to appraise the project aspirations.
• Advice on legal responsibilities e.g., duty of care for waste during construction and method statements to show commitment to legal compliance by advisors.
• A commitment to responsible procurement and purchasing.
• Evidence that all involved understand the sustainable design strategy and their role in ensuring its delivery.
• A rigorous method by which to explore the commitment of the design team and contractors.
• Evidence of commitment to training of all involved.

There is a wide range of additional tools and techniques available to assist a community group or design team to deliver a sustainable project. It is important that there is commitment to continually appraise the degree to which sustainable development objectives are being met. The techniques vary from those that seek to establish sustainable construction as a process conforming to real limitations on resources and impact, to checklists that encourage issues to be considered.  Tools exist for the appraisal of materials, resources, products, places, components, buildings, professional practice, construction processes, social factors, business performance & investment. Issues covered include design quality, place, biodiversity, occupant satisfaction, transport, indoor air quality, light quality and quantity, resource use and cost, emissions, noise, waste, embodied energy, embodied toxicity and more.

2. Supporting communities
The built environment has a crucial impact on the physical, mental, emotional and economic health and well-being of individuals, communities and organizations. Where buildings contribute to ill-health and alienation, undermine community and create excessive financial liability, they are undesirable and unsustainable. Interventions are needed that identify and meet the needs and requirements of communities and contribute to enhancing community aspirations. The higher the level of real community engagement and inclusion the more successful a development is likely to be. There is a need to find inventive ways to cultivate ‘real’ involvement but overcome a slide toward consultation fatigue. The issues at stake are:-

• access and choice – particularly but not solely for the most disadvantaged and disaffected;
• affordability – both capital and running costs to minimize excessive long term liability;
• identity– to create a sense of place relevant to the location and to overcome the blandness of much contemporary development;
• facilitating social interaction and community through designed spaces, mixed use development, local services and social infrastructure including good transport choices

3. Using resources effectively
Buildings and infrastructure represent a significant use of human, economic and environmental resources. The extraction of fossil fuels and materials to fuel the construction industry changes the landscape, natural habitats and ecosystems and cause damage and irreversible depletion. Managing and reducing the demand for resources should take precedence over supply-side considerations. Conservation of resources (land, money, energy, water, human) is invariably good value in the long term and, at its best, can lead to more imaginative solutions than simply meeting the ever-increasing demand for resources. Considerations include energy efficiency through passive and bioclimatic design and careful selection of electrical goods and artificial lighting, water economy, waste management, low impact transport strategies and well thought-out materials procurement – including use of recycled materials and design for recycling.

4. Enhancing biodiversity
The majority of construction activity transforms natural habitats into environments where species other than humans struggle to exist. Yet, attention to biodiversity can significantly enhance the quality of built environments, add value, interest and enjoyment. Measures such as provision of wildlife corridors, use of surface water, native and edible planting, designed breeding areas and avoidance of polluting treatments and materials are typical of good practice to enhance opportunities for native species colonisation.

5. Creating healthy environments
The outcome of the design process should ensure that buildings have a positive impact on health and well-being, rather than merely minimising any negative aspects.

The Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 1994 (CDM) had a huge impact on construction site hazards and health and safety issues. However, a sustainable approach also recognises the potentially hazardous effects of buildings in use. The problem of building related ill-health (asthma, bronchitis and a range of effects sometimes collectively referred to as sick building syndrome) is endemic. This requires a positive attitude on the part of designers to actively create healthy environments.

This requires attention to materials specification so as to avoid known and suspected building related allergens and minimise the conditions in which they can have an adverse impact. Moisture management is crucial to preventing the development of unhealthy environments and the growth of harmful allergenic organisms. Architectural quality is an important aspect, aspects like the contribution of daylight make a real contribution to people’s experience and well-being inside buildings.

6. Minimising Pollution
Few industries that supply the construction sector derive from, or deliver, ‘clean’ products or technologies. The majority of materials and products are chemically and mechanically transformed and some contain significant industrial pollution, including re-engineered waste, which may have limited life and then no further use. The construction industry, and the industries that support it, are major contributors to a persistent poisoning of the natural and the man-made environment. This poisoning is apparent:-

• in the global atmosphere, by the depletion of the ozone layer and global warming;
• on land, by the pollution of soil and water courses by industrial and agricultural wastes and run off from roads;
• at sea, by increasing levels of toxins in sea birds and sea mammals derived from human and chemical waste;
• inside buildings, by increasing levels of synthetic chemicals from construction, cleaning and maintenance activities, which are believed to contribute to the occurrence of sick building syndrome;
• internally to humans, by allergies and illness including a range of cancers and dramatic increases in random occurrences of cancers.

Attention to design and materials specification can reduce pollutants such as carbon dioxide and oxides of sulphur and nitrogen, asbestos, CFC’s, halogens, volatile organic compounds, solvents and chemical treatments of materials and landscape.

Features of a Sustainable building project

• Meets the functional, social and health needs of a community.
• Is well managed by people with clear responsibilities.
• Is responsive to the needs, requirements and aspirations of all members of the community.
• Recognises people as the most important assets of a community, and is therefore designed around, and for, their well-being.
• Integrates with a broad sector of existing communities and creates possibilities for new communities to evolve through consideration of shared and communal facilities and mixed-use development.
• Has recognisable design quality and interesting and attractive form.
• Is affordable to run and simple to manage and maintain in a benign manner.
• Results from a well-understood and broad commitment to engaging proactively in sustainable development as a positive social and economic driver.
• Uses passive design and conservation in the first instance to minimise demand for resources and only then looks to affordable renewable strategies to meet remaining demand.
• Protects the health of users, through avoiding exposure to pollutants, the use of toxic materials or providing host environments to harmful organisms.
• Enhances biodiversity locally by landscaping based on best practice guidance, and globally by not using materials from threatened species or environments.
• Does not cause unnecessary waste of energy, water or materials due to short life, poor design, inefficiency or poor construction and manufacturing procedures.
• Does not consume a disproportionate amount of resources, including land, building materials, water, energy and transport during construction, use or disposal
• Incorporates best practice in energy efficiency, building health and longevity by excellent standards of insulation, proper detailing to minimise air infiltration, designed ventilation and good control. NB: Good control refers to water, air and light and heat and power – it does not assume centralised electronic control – rather implementation of good practice.
• Uses low embodied energy materials and recycled and recyclable resources where these do not impose a toxicity burden.
• Has a green travel plan to create minimum dependence on polluting forms of transport and encourage access to, and the development of, safe, non-polluting and sustainable forms of transport. In may places it has become a planning requirement
• Is flexible to facilitate changes in response to demographics and technology and which allow expansion or contraction in the future, where appropriate.