INTERVIEW | QUINTEN BABCOCK/BILL BORDASS The industry, however, must take some responsibility for the lack of progress, says Babcock, who identifies two chief problems: the construction design and build process, and a lack of competence in the facilities maintenance industry. So how will the industry achieve its climate targets? Babcock argues for implementing DfP for new builds; motivating the construction and FM industry to achieve better operational energy performance; making EPCs mandatory for retrofits and perhaps even for all FM contracts; and requiring the energy usage of all buildings or, at the very least, those in the non-domestic sector to be disclosed. Enforcing EPCs for non-domestic buildings together with some form of mandatory disclosure could be the mechanism to get the wider industry to take sustainability seriously. There must be a way of getting FMs to buy into operational energy, at least from a HVAC perspective, says Babcock. We need to motivate the industry get people to care. Bill Bordass If he had been told 10 years ago how little progress would be made on tackling climate change, the building scientist Bill Bordass would have been completely shocked. The 2009 Copenhagen UN climate change summit expected to be a breakthrough was, in Bordasss words, a fiasco. It took until Paris 2015 for substantial progress to be made. At the recent follow-up event in Poland, there was more appreciation that urgent action is required: People are realising it is the last-chance saloon: if we dont get a grip on things well before 2030, it will be far too late. In his 2009 article, Bordass said the UK government was committed to improving the sustainability of new and existing buildings, but wasnt going about it effectively: too much rhetoric and not enough action. After 10 years, his big disappointment is faltering progress on DECs, with government support completely hopeless. Bordass had been part of a team that had worked hard between 2000 and 2008 to make in-use performance visible and actionable by helping to get DECs established in the UK and the EU. He also working with CIBSE to develop the TM47 process and benchmarking system designed to evolve rapidly with feedback, but completely neglected since publication, because DCLG did not make its database an open, public asset, but outsourced it. Bordass was also on the UKGBCs working party that advocated DECs for offices, helping to get them into the draft 2011 Energy Bill. He recalls: We got lots of people on side, including the CBI. However, at the last Back to the feature: Bill Bordass in 2019 charging his new hybrid car via his terrace homes coal hole, and, below, appearing in the rst CIBSE Journal minute, the government axed this requirement. Bordass believes privatisation and outsourcing has led to a terrible loss of institutional and collective memory in Whitehall. It makes it difficult to make joined-up decisions; there is no scientific civil service, so policy-making is influenced by external pressures from vested interests and well-meaning but blinkered single-issue lobbyists, says the former RMJM building services leader. He likens the government to a drunk looking for a set of lost keys at night. He searches under the lamppost because that is where the light is (but not the keys). Bordass is now trying to establish a public interest organisation to help put all this back. Nevertheless, Bordass believes good work has been done on laying foundations, for example new professionalism, a cause he championed 10 years ago in CIBSE Journal. CIBSEs professional code requires members to promote sustainability, so surely you must understand how your buildings perform: the consequences of your actions. Building professionals should rise to the occasion, not just act in fear of being struck off, he says. People will then learn from their mistakes, not keep repeating them, and report and share findings. This feedback will help to make buildings much more efficient not by adding more kit, but by doing things better, as NABERS has confirmed in Australia. More thought, less kit is more sustainable too. Another glimmer of hope is that the performance gap is better appreciated, if still not understood. At a recent CIBSE event, Bordass was encouraged by the bright young people keen to do things differently. Having been ill since 2016, the 75-year-old is now firmly back in the swing, contributing to the debate from his platform at the Usable Buildings Trust charity. He fears humanity has left it too late to stop irreversible climate change, but is determined to do his bit to limit the damage, while also making buildings nicer for people too. Things are improving, but at nothing like the rate they should, he warns. In many existing buildings (including new ones,) a tune-up can reduce energy use by typically 20%, with a further 20% from low-cost alterations. How about a Saving Energy in a Hurry project to crystallise these quick wins? It would cost less than one Hinckley, save more energy than the whole nuclear programme, and could be on-stream well before Hinckley even started up. Are CIBSE and its members up for it? CJ 22 February 2019 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE Feb19 pp21-22 10 years of CJ.indd 22 25/01/2019 18:25