Conference Ecobuild Feeling Blue, Green And Grey By Sara Kassam, CIBSE Faced with a packed Ecobuild programme, I plumped for a seminar on Urban liveability and wellbeing: balancing blue, green and grey infrastructure. According to an EPSRC-funded project, led by the University of Nottingham, a blue-green city aims to recreate a naturally oriented water-cycle while bringing water management and green infrastructure together. What I tend to find missing is the interaction with building services. The UK-GBC recently released a report, Demystifying Green Infrastructure. The focus is on wider infrastructure, and perhaps its up to building services engineers to be more vocal about how the coherence of systems within buildings can affect external environments, and vice versa. GrEEn THInkErS cooL HoT AIr With an election around the corner, politicians were well represented at the 2015 Ecobuild conference. Liza Young reports from the hustings and detects crossparty agreement over the urgent requirement for energy efficiency AUTHOR NAME bit more info here yxyxyx yxyxyx xyxyxyyxyxy xyxyxyxyxyx T he political sustainability agenda made headlines at Ecobuild 2015, with party representatives jostling for position in the leadup to next months General Election. Energy secretary Ed Davey said a future Liberal Democrat government would spend 2bn a year on a green homes revolution to improve energy efficiency in the UK. During his keynote speech, Davey said the partys green proposals including a Green Magna Carta would be breathtaking in their ambition. A Green Homes Bill would contain a long-term target to bring all homes up to EPC rating C by 2035, with financial incentives for homeowners, such as Council Tax reductions for raising energy efficiency by two bands, and a feed-out tariff for solid-wall insulation. Davey said that, from 2018/19, the Lib Dems would invest about 2bn a year on domestic energy efficiency, which needed to be reclassified as part of a national infrastructure plan. This approach could result in four million homes being upgraded by 2015, and 10 million by 2025, he said. Since the pilot was launched, household gas consumption has reduced by 36.6%, while the average living room temperature had increased by 42%. Burns said the scheme was expected to generate a reduction in visits to GPs, walk-in and A&E centres, and cut in prescription costs. not a big deal The Conservative Partys declaration of being the greenest government ever was overshadowed by one of its MPs, who condemned further investment in renewables. Speaking at the conference, Peter Lilley said politicians had enormously exaggerated the effects of global warming, and that the potential costs of implementing the Climate Change Act could be twice the amount of the maximum financial benefit for the UK. The Hitchin and Harpenden MP, who studied natural sciences at Cambridge University, said global warming was of the same order of magnitude as other natural factors, which have offset it. Under the Climate Change Act, the UK is committed to reducing emissions by 80% by 2050, while the European Union (EU) has set a target of at least a 40% reduction by 2030, which includes sourcing 27% of energy from renewables. The Conservative Partys declaration of being the greenest government ever was overshadowed by one of its MPs, who condemned investment in renewables However, Lilley said it was cheaper to use fossil fuels. We can crack this problem without impoverishing people in the process. The rest of the panel, which included Davey, Labours shadow spokeswoman for energy and climate change, Baroness Worthington, Green Party leader, Natalie Bennett, and environmental professor, Lighting for health eoR RMade Blue, GReen and GRey infRastRuCtuRe How buildings are lit has a significant effect on occupier wellbeing and quality of life, according to panellists on a lighting session, chaired by Paul Littlefair, principal lighting consultant at BRE. Littlefair said daylight provides high levels of blue-enriched light that helps maintain a persons circadian rhythms the physical, mental and behavioural changes that follow a 24-hour cycle. Exposure to light at night suppresses melatonin, raising the risk of cancer, he said. Florence Lam, global lighting design leader at Arup, said it was important to embrace biological needs in lighting design. With LED, for example, it is possible to create EcoBuild visitors check out a living wall. Below: Lord Deben addresses Ecobuild Paul Ekins, opposed Lilleys views. Ekins said the scientific and economic case for low carbon electricity was compelling and that theres a real possibility that unmitigated climate change could be catastrophic. He said the cost of renewables had fallen considerably, and future investment would bring it down even further. Shortly before Ecobuild, the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) announced 315m of funding for 27 renewable projects designed to generate more than two gigawatts of electricity. Labours Worthington believed the costs of implementing the Climate boilers on prescription The outgoing government has made a further 70m available for the Green Deal home-improvement fund. The scheme, which opened to new applications last month, offers up to 5,600 to households in England and Wales to help with the cost of improvements such as solid-wall, cavity-wall and floor insulation, double glazing and boilers. Davey also announced the coalitions3m of funding for pilot schemes designed to tackle fuel poverty, including 1m, released now, for warmth on prescription projects. Doctors will be able to prescribe boilers, insulation and double glazing for patients whose ailments are exacerbated by cold, damp homes. Paul Burns, Green Futures manager at Gentoo housing association, runs one such pilot in Sunderland. He told a Refurb and Retrofit seminar which was discussing alternatives to the Green Deal that Gentoo partnered with the Sunderland Clinical Commissioning Group to prescribe health, not treat sickness. The average spend on energy efficient improvements to homes in the trial has been 5,000, while each emergency admission to hospital costs 2,500, he said. Change Act was an investment. For me, the pounds we are adding to peoples bills are investment in jobs, the future and my childs planet. Meanwhile, former deputy prime minister John Prescott called for crossparty unity in dealing with climate change, saying: Were all in it together. He said improving the UKs housing stock was key to tackling the problem, but biological darkness by removing the blue light that tells your brain its daytime. Brian Charman, manager at Philips Lighting University, said changing colour temperature could accelerate the recovery time of hospital patients. He referred to studies that show how circadian lighting in neo-natal units resulted in weight gain in pre-term babies, while dementia patients slept longer and deeper. He added that, at Maastricht UMC, cardiac patients with circadian lighting slept for 30 minutes longer and fell asleep more quickly than their control-group counterparts. The system led to an 8.5% reduction in patient-stay times. focusing on new build missed 95% of the problem. If Labour wins the election next month, Prescott will represent the UK government at the Paris climate summit, in December. A question of Europe In a debate that questioned whether the UK would ditch its sustainability policies if it voted to leave the EU, panellists opinions were unanimous. Lord Deben, chair of the committee on climate change, said staying in Europe was crucial to the future of Britain, not just because it has influence over policies, but also because, environmentally, it would be disastrous. Joanne Wade, director of the Association for the Conservation of Energy, said a No vote for EU membership would have repercussions for UK firms. Businesses trading in the EU will have to comply with European regulations, but will have no influence on how those regulations are designed. She added: Energy efficiency increases the GDP, health and wellbeing, and employment. Whether we are in or out, thats a fact that is going to stay the same. cJ