YEAR AHEAD | PREDICTIONS DOWN TO ZERO The government has set a net zero by 2050 target, but many industry professionals have committed to achieving this by 2030. We asked five experts what they are looking forward to in 2020, and what the priority will be to ensure were on the path to zero carbon Jennifer Elias, senior engineer at Cundall, on behalf of LETI Its been a really exciting year for the London Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI). We published our one-page guide to net-zero operational carbon in 2019 and are gearing up to release our full Climate Emergency Design Guide in January. Were looking forward to the industry building on, developing, and collaborating on solutions to move towards net-zero carbon in 2020. To work towards net zero, start by reading our Design Guide. Prepared by professionals from across the industry, it highlights some of the solutions we can put in place now for new buildings. There are many high-impact things we can implement in the buildings were designing. We need to: Optimise window-to-wall ratio. For residential, this should be 10-30% depending on orientation and, for commercial buildings, 40-50%. Full-height, full-width glass should end with 2010 buildings Eliminate onsite fossil-fuel combustion for heating and hot water Design all buildings so they are capable of being naturally ventilated when outdoor conditions permit Do a full embodied-carbon study, and implement solutions to reduce embodied carbon and construction impacts. For buildings operating now, we need to: Publicly disclose operational energy performance on an annual basis Undertake efficiency audits and ensure controls regimes are set, to maximise efficiency As plant reaches its end of life, carefully consider alternatives to like- for-like replacement with net zero in mind. All parts of the industry have a role to play were looking forward to further collaboration on net-zero carbon solutions in 2020. Dave Cheshire, regional director at Aecom The past six months have been transformative, with policy-makers, construction clients, designers, local authorities, investors and owners all committing to net-zero targets and declaring climate emergencies. Many of our clients are asking for advice and inviting us to help them translate policy into action. Next year, Im looking forward to this new enthusiasm being turned into real change. Im excited about the launch of the new edition of CIBSE Guide L: Sustainability, as this aims to respond to the rapidly evolving agenda. The Publication Committee that I chair ensured the revision addressed the climate crisis when the rewrite started three years ago, well before the rapid change in public awareness. An important step in delivering low energy and net-zero carbon buildings is to understand how the buildings we design are actually performing. So, next year, we are starting by pushing our new EVOL+VE initiative, which includes revisiting more of the completed projects we have designed to understand how they are performing, and to learn lessons that we can use to inform our new designs. I believe we have to take a more holistic view of buildings, to ensure we are considering the whole-life impacts of design decisions, including the circular economy agenda. This moves beyond simply cutting operational energy use and reducing embodied carbon impacts, towards concepts such as designing for adaptability and designing for disassembly, to ensure we retain the value of buildings, and their components in perpetuity. 22 January 2020 www.cibsejournal.com CIBSE Jan20 pp22-23 Year ahead.indd 22 20/12/2019 17:03