When Ecobuild Ends

Posted on March 11, 2013 by Doug King

Unbelievably I think that I may have been proved right about something. I have often questioned the sustainability of Ecobuild now that it is a corporate behemoth (most recently here). I felt sure that the levels of waste involved in this sort of exhibition was anathema to the sustainable agenda it purports to advocate.

Well, I was passing Excel this morning on the DLR and spotted skip trucks lined up on the external loading gallery. Ecobuild finished last week and the next event starts on Thursday. (Which, by the way, is the Big Bang Science Fair and well worth attending if you can.)

I thought I detected something vaguely familiar about the contents of the skips, but I’ll let you be the judge.

Ecobuild photographed 6th March 2013

Ecobuild photographed 11th March 2013

Excel in the snow

Low Carbon People

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Doug King

MP Don Foster announced at Ecobuild this week, funding for a programme by the Zero Carbon Hub to investigate why energy consumption in low carbon dwellings is higher than expected. The answer is apparent in evidence also available at Ecobuild pointing to the obvious, which the industry and policy makers continue to fail to recognise.

On Tuesday, Ed Davey defended the Green Deal in the face of poor take up and a recent YouGov survey which revealed that the majority of householders have little interest in energy conservation and believe instead that the energy companies should be forced to lower their charges.

In the Edge Debate on Politics of Carbon Measurement, on Wednesday, Lynne Sullivan showed that actual energy consumption in Passivhaus dwellings is 90% below the average and substantially below the best of the rest.

So the reason for the performance gap between prediction and actual outcomes in low carbon homes should be obvious to all:

Passivhaus homes are voluntary. They are built or commissioned by individuals who are already concerned about their carbon footprint and are therefore pre-disposed to a low energy lifestyle.

The Code for Sustainable Homes, Building Regulations Part L et al are well meaning in intent, but the people who will buy the homes are no more interested in energy conservation than the average Briton. They will happily leave the heating on and open all the windows.

Studies of low carbon refurbishments by social housing landlords have already shown the vast variation in energy consumption in identically refurbished flats that occurs simply as a result of lifestyle. In some cases this variation is so great that it actually masks the improvement in efficiency achieved in the refurbishment.

The message is clear. Personal preference and individual behaviour is what drives energy consumption or conservation, not fantastic building fabric energy efficiency standards, nor regulation or checklists and not energy bills (at least yet).

When are politicians going to finally wake up and admit that the climate change and energy crisis is down to the way in which we all behave, not the buildings we behave in. If we want to make any substantial progress on sustainability it is time to start apportioning blame where it really belongs: the workmen (and workwomen) not the tools. Then we need to get on with changing people’s attitudes towards energy.

Ecobuild Over-Enthusiasm

Posted on March 1, 2013 by Doug King

It’s Ecobuild time again so the ether is filling up with marketeers attempts to convince us that re-branding is as good as actually addressing the environmental impacts of a product. The sheer band-waggoning on display at Ecobuild is enough to make anyone question their eco-credentials. Last year I noted a wide range of products that differed from those on display at conventional trade shows only by the addition of the “Eco-” tag to their branding. Classics included electric pumps for removing water from leaking basements, “green” plumbers merchants and “certified zero carbon carpet”.

Speaking of carpet, in past years I have questioned the sustainability of an event that glues down acres of carpet to the floor of Excel for just one week. Now there are many questions over the environmental impacts of cheap carpet anyway, but note that the carpet is Ecobuild blue. So I suspect that at the end of the week it is all scraped up and sent to land-fill. This year I am going to make it my task to find out from the organisers how much carpet has been recycled from past Ecobuilds.

Where does all the Ecobuild blue carpet go after Ecobuild?

By the way, this year I will be speaking at a special Edge Debate on the Politics of Carbon Emissions Data along with Richard Lorch, Tadj Oreszczyn and Lynne Sullivan (Wednesday 6th 16:30-18:00).

EcoBuild – EcoPuff

Posted on March 13, 2010 by Doug King

My current state of disillusionment has been brought on largely by a visit to Ecobuild last week. I haven’t been to Ecobuild for several years because I find it too depressing. Someone in my office asked me what Ecobuild was and off the cuff I responded:

“It’s a platform for the barely educated to sell their ‘expertise’ to the ignorant”.

After visiting the show again I am afraid I was not wrong.

Advertised as the world’s biggest event for sustainable design, construction and the built environment, Ecobuild is little more than a construction products trade show with a lot of eco-puff tacked on. Suddenly everyone who has ever eaten an organic vegetable is an expert on sustainability; an extract fan that has always been an extract fan becomes an ‘eco-extract fan’ and building with timber is the latest thing since, well, building with timber.

What is really interesting about events like Ecobuild is watching how manufacturers try to establish themselves in the ecosphere. There are a few manufacturers of really worthwhile products whose show stands are basically the same as they were 3 years ago – their products are the genuine article and they have no need to change. On the other hand we have the mass market suppliers desperately trying to find some form of green branding for their products, who are so intent on keeping up with the zeitgeist that they re-brand every few months.

My tip – buy products that that don’t include ‘eco’ in their title.