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Thursday, 21 June 2007
The Carbon Footprint of Offices
While there has been exhaustive analysis of the energy use of the manufacturing and transportation industry, there has been relatively little light shone on the service sector, despite the fact that it appears to contribute about a sixth of UK carbon emissions. Now Chris Goodall, author of 'How To Live a Low Carbon Life' (see my review here), has published a review of the carbon footprint of the service sector.Goodall found that the average office based worker is responsible for about 2.26 t CO2 pa while at work. This is slightly more than the average British person emits lighting and heating their own home (2.21 t CO2 pa), despite the fact they only spend a quarter of their time at work. The main culprit is air conditioning - offices with aircon have twice the carbon footprint of offices without. The popularity of aircon is growing despite the fact that passive ventilation is cheaper both in terms of capital cost and (obviously) running costs.
This week I was contacted by the owner of a small business (SME) who wanted to make their offices 'green'. His frustration was that, like many small operations, they had little or no control over the services management in their workspace. This ruled out about half my standard 'quick wins', despite the fact none of them involved anything more substantial than changing a lightbulb. As the vast majority of companies are SMEs and few own their offices, this problem is widespread.
So while it is relatively easy to specify a low energy office new build (you just have to ask for "BREEAM Very Good" or "BREEAM Excellent"), the difficultly lies in all the existing blocks, and, importantly, influencing the person who has their hand on the temperature control.
Labels: BREEAM, carbon footprint, offices, service sector
# posted by Gareth Kane : 08:02
Comments:
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BREEAM Very Good is not a complete guarantee of low energy. The way the scheme is set up, it is possible to score very highly elsewhere (water, transport, etc) and not do very well on energy and still get a very good. BREEAM is an overall sustainability measure - not an energy measure.
# posted by 
: 22 June 2007 02:50
: 22 June 2007 02:50
Very True, although most in practice have pretty good energy performance.
It is interesting that the new Code for Sustainable Homes addresses your point for the domestic market by introducing minimum energy and water standards at each level. I assume BRE will introduce this into the future BREEAM standards.
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It is interesting that the new Code for Sustainable Homes addresses your point for the domestic market by introducing minimum energy and water standards at each level. I assume BRE will introduce this into the future BREEAM standards.
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A highly accessible, practical guide to those who want to introduce sustainability into their business or organization quickly and effectively.
