NET-ZERO SCHOOLS | FUTURE RESILIENCE Building resilience into net-zero schools Schools designed today must withstand future climate change. Tim Taylor, Joe Jack Williams and Paula Morgenstern, from the CIBSE School Design Group, look at the likelihood of them overheating A month after the UK government announced its net-zero target, we had the hottest day in the UK since records began. As the urgency of cutting carbon emissions rises up the industry agenda, so too should our response to the risks of hotter summers, wetter winters and extreme weather. What impact will net-zero and climate change have on schools across the country and how can the sector best respond to these multiple challenges, as well as related environmental objectives, such as net biodiversity gain? The CIBSE Schools Design Group on climate change adaptation was formed to share knowledge and promote good practice in adapting school buildings to future climate, with an initial focus on the risks of higher summer temperatures. In April 2019, a kick-off workshop involving industry, academia and policymakers was held to develop a joint view on the actions to be taken. Among the key issues highlighted were the need: For a collective understanding of how schools currently perform To build confidence in predicting performance under future climate scenarios For more guidance on current overheating risk assessments to achieve greater consistency and transparency when assessing thermal performance of schools To recognise that the existing school estate represents the biggest challenge for climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, strategies developed for new schools should lead the way. From the workshop, two workstreams were established one focused on modelling to test the performance of recent school designs under future climate scenarios, and the other on monitoring to gather data on how school buildings are performing. Under the modelling workstream, a range of schools, delivered to meet current thermal comfort design standards for example, the Building Bulletin 101 (BB101) overheating risk assessment methodology were tested against two future climate scenarios. With the support of CIBSE and the Met Office, weather files were selected that aimed to represent scenarios of 2C and 4C global warming above pre-industrial levels. These two scenarios align with how climate risks to the UK are assessed in the Climate Change Risk Assessment.1 This, in turn, informs wider UK 40 April 2020 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE Apr20 pp40-42 Supp Resilient net zero schools.indd 40 20/03/2020 19:01