A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to chair a seminar on eco building being held in the Middle East.
At the heart of many of the projects discussed were the various rating systems, such as LEED, BREEAM. The impression I got was that the desire to score points in the rating system seemed to work against the spirit of what these systems are about.
An example given was the use of FSC certified wood in a particular project. This scored highly because the wood was from a sustainable source. It was then disclosed that the wood was also coming from North America, so this was not the “greenest” wood.
One ray of sunshine came from a version of LEED that had been adapted for the Middle East. As it had strayed from LEED it was no longer LEED, but it had developed something of direct relevance. An example was in the rating around eco-landscaping. LEED gives maximum points when less than 50% of water used is potable water. For an area that struggles for water that would be folly so this version has 0% of potable water for eco-landscaping as the measure. This makes so much more sense.
It was also noticeable that out of all the projects where rating systems have been used in design we did not come across any which was achieving the performance in practice. These systems need to be used intelligently.
What brought this seminar back to the front of my mind is an unpublished report by the Carbon Trust that our CO2 levels are a lot higher than we think due to the embedded carbon in products we import. I am surprised that this comes as a surprise.
A lot of our CO2 reduction came with the demise in the manufacturing industry. Foundries, steel plants, chemical works and other heavy energy users producing bulk commodities and products have been replaced by small volume niche and speciality products. So good so far, but the things we used to make are still being made elsewhere to go into the products we now import. So all we have done is shifted the problem elsewhere, not reduced it.
So be prepared for action from the politicians in their attempt to deal with the problem. This will probably mean a new set of carbon taxes on imported goods amongst others. The richer countries have the biggest problems as they import so much.
