VOICES | HYWEL DAVIES Building to perform Pressure is growing to make our existing building stock much more energy efficient, to guard against overheating, and to deliver buildings that are safe and really work in daily use, as Hywel Davies explains T he Better Buildings Partnership recently announced a partnership to develop a UK version of Nabers.1 Design for Performance aims to do just that: target design of buildings that deliver the designed performance. It is an alternative to the current design for compliance culture, which is only concerned with meeting the minimum requirements of the Building Regulations, and disregards the performance of the building after handover, when Building Regulations cease to have a legal locus. This culture was identified in the review of Building Regulations and fire safety by Dame Judith Hackitt, who described it as a race to the bottom. Meanwhile, the government has enacted legislative change to the carbon emissions reduction target set in the Climate Change Act 2008, so the UK is now committed to a target of net zero carbon emissions by 2050.2 It is one thing to have a target and to generate positive headlines for changing the law; it is quite another to have a clear plan for delivering the target. The Committee on Climate Change (CCC) said as much in its 2019 report on the governments progress towards the 2050 objectives, which makes for uncomfortable reading.3 After last years could do better on progress towards tangible, measurable delivery, the 2019 version is close to couldnt do much worse. Only one of 25 specific recommendations from last year has been met. Lord Deben, mildly outspoken chair of the committee, likened the governments approach to climate change to Dads Army. Baroness Brown went on BBC Radio 4s Today programme and outlined in more detail what needs to happen. If we are to meet out climate targets, we need more buildings that are designed to perform effectively. Not just energy efficiently, but meeting user and occupier requirements, and not overheating. And not just new buildings, but across the existing stock, too. Its not just the CCC that thinks this. Just days after its report, the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Select Committee issued its report, Energy efficiency: building towards net zero4, which calls for: public disclosure of operational energy in the commercial sector; publication of audits undertaken for the EnergySavings Opportunity Scheme; and a commercial equivalent of the Future HomesStandard, with equal ambition for world-leading efficiency levels. Meanwhile, the industry grapples with the Building a Safer Future consultation5, proposing significant change in the regulation of what we build, how we build, who builds, and how it is operated. Its call for design to target safety in operation, not just compliance at practical completion, complements and extends Design for Performance what performance characteristic is more important than safety? There are proposals for contractors and designers of higher-rise buildings in which people sleep to sign a declaration that what they have built meets the regulations, and to provide a digital model of what they have actually built, identifying all significant changes to the approved design and agreed products. In addition, they will make these declarations and models for a newly established regulatory body, not just local building control or approved inspectors. More radically, existing buildings falling within the scope of the new regime will require a licence from the new regulator to show they are safe to occupy, with a safety case for continued operation, to be reviewed by the regulator every five years. Its about management for safe performance and with concerns over health The new structure is unclear, but it looks set to separate regulation from enforcement DR HYWEL DAVIES is technical director at CIBSE www.cibse.org 16 August 2019 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE Aug19 pp16-17 Hywel Davies.indd 16 19/07/2019 13:22