Claire Brierley speaks about minimising embodied carbon in refrigerants
The CIBSE Build2Perform Live conference and exhibition brought together engineers, academics and policy-makers to discuss the big issues affecting building services performance. Over two days at ExCeL London, more than 1,700 delegates heard from 125 speakers on topics such as the Building Safety Act, embodied carbon, and decarbonisation of heat.
Dedicated theatres for lighting and facilities management (FM) reflected their importance in improving building performance, and there was a wide range of live CPD sessions.
CIBSE President Elect Vince Arnold opened the event by telling engineers they had a ‘unique opportunity to shape not only buildings, but also the communities and urban environments in which they exist’. He drew attention to CIBSE’s contribution to the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard (UK NZCBS), and its responses to the challenges around competency posed by the Building Safety Act.
‘As we navigate the complexities of this new regulatory landscape, it is essential that we commit ourselves to upholding the highest safety standards in our work,’ said Arnold, who described how CIBSE’s new Building Services Fire Safety Working Group would ‘shape internal resources and be an invaluable point of contact for inquiries and concerns’.
The session on the UK NZCBS was standing room only. Delegates heard about the pilot, which will road test the standard on real buildings. UK NZCBS outlines performance and energy and carbon limits to reduce operational and embodied carbon to align with the UK’s climate goals. CIBSE’s head of net zero policy, Julie Godefroy, said: ‘We don’t just sit and wait. The energy limits facilitate decarbonisation of the Grid by 2035, if not earlier.’
Compliance alone won’t ensure safety or performance. We need to… truly future-proof our buildings
The speakers emphasised the importance of getting more projects into the pilot testing scheme. ‘The more data we have, the more reliable we can be in terms of how we set a trajectory to reach our target,’ said Julia Skeete, senior associate principal at SOM.
In a session on embodied carbon and TM65, Amazon sustainability engineer Andrew Rhodes MCIBSE said embodied carbon was a key focus for the online services giant, as it represents a large proportion of its carbon footprint. Amazon was heavily involved in CIBSE TM65.3 guidance for logistics centres, as well as the North American version, TM65NA. Rhodes said it is now working with supermarkets and CIBSE on a new version of TM65 for grocery stores, telling the audience, ‘we can’t do this by ourselves’.
Yara Machnouk MCIBSE, associate at Introba Consulting, said mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) represented 40% of carbon over the lifetime of a building, in part because of the high replacement rate of MEP equipment.
Embodied carbon and cooling
Claire Brierley, sustainability consultant at Hoare Lea, spoke about refrigerants and their three big influencing factors on embodied carbon: refrigerant type, leakage rate, and volume of charge. She said lower global warming potential (GWP) refrigerant systems, such as R32 and R513a, were performing better than high-GWP refrigerants, but ultra-low alternatives were ‘struggling a bit on efficiency’. However, as the Grid decarbonised, the refrigerants’ whole life impacts would be lower, added Brierley, because operational efficiencies would have less impact.
David Stevens FCIBSE, director of estates, facilities and capital development, at East London NHS Foundation Trust, and CIBSE vice-president, kicked off day two at Maintain2Perform, with a focus on promoting operational aspects of the built environment. ‘Compliance alone won’t ensure safety or performance,’ he said. ‘We need to shift our mindset to truly future-proof our buildings.’ He highlighted the rapid pace of change driven by climate imperatives and emerging technologies, particularly AI.
A ‘silent seminar’ at one of the vision theatres
A panel discussion with the CIBSE FM Group brought together James Campbell, partner at Troup Bywaters + Anders, Bernard Crouch, director at AcumenFM, and Natalie Atherton MCIBSE, asset life-cycle manager at AstraZeneca. Atherton emphasised the importance of forward-thinking leadership: ‘We must use data to anticipate future needs.’ Crouch agreed, citing recent environmental challenges. ‘The floods in Spain showed us what happens when we don’t consider future scenarios,’ he said.
Campbell spoke on flexibility. ‘By 2050, 80% of buildings will already exist. We must adapt spaces for new uses, focusing on systems-level performance,’ he said, adding that the role of nature should be considered in buildings.
In a debate on the role of engineers in a tech-driven world, Mike Darby, co-founder and CEO at Demand Logic, said technology was removing mundane tasks and allowing engineers to focus on problem-solving – but they still need a deep understanding of systems. ‘A BMS can’t operate optimally if it’s signed off incorrectly or misinformed,’ Darby added.
Lewis Locke, head of AndOr Systems, also believes AI offers opportunities. ‘With IoT [internet of things] and analytics, engineers can achieve what was impossible manually. Tech enhances efficiency – it doesn’t replace us,’ he said.
Twenty One Engineering MD Phil Draper FCIBSE raised concerns about inadequate training, saying ‘many on site lack the necessary skills to maintain complex systems effectively’.
A seminar on engineering education, chaired by CIBSE Journal technical editor Tim Dwyer FCIBSE, was organised by members of the newly established CIBSE Education Guild. Dejan Mumovic FCIBSE, chair of the guild and director of the UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering, emphasised the influence of engineers across a building’s life-cycle, and underscored the critical role of undergraduate education in equipping future professionals with the skills needed for this.
Dr Yangang Xing, from Nottingham Trent University, discussed his experience with a Royal Academy of Engineering-funded project focused on mapping energy for urban zero carbon transitions. His hands-on approach to urban sustainability not only helps students gain practical skills with digital tools, but also builds their confidence with complex scientific concepts.
The final presentation was by Philip Griffiths, chair in building physics, and PhD researcher Moses Itanola, from Ulster University, on the environmental impacts of energy use, resource demand, and waste in the building sector.
Several speakers reminded delegates of the human cost of poor buildings. Kate de Selincourt, Passivhaus Trust health and wellbeing associate, said a substantial proportion of homes do not have adequate heating because people can’t afford to turn it on. Passivhaus design provides much better insulation and airtightness, De Selincourt added, reducing heating costs dramatically and offering greater resilience against cold temperatures. She shared a study that compared the temperature decay in January between a Passivhaus and standard home. After five days, the Passivhaus home was 16°C, while the standard home was 8°C (with a 4°C average outdoor temperature).
In a retrofit session, ECD Architects’ head of sustainability and associate director, Loreana Padron, shared details of a retrofit project for Cambridge City Council, involving 46 1930s semi-detached and terraced houses, and a block of flats. The fabric-first project follows EnerPHit principles, and homes will have external wall insulation, triple-glazed windows and improved airtightness. Heat pumps will replace gas boilers, and PVs and MVHR are being installed.
As people had cheaper bills, they were more likely to turn on their heating and live in warm, healthy homes, Padron said: ‘We aim to take a lot of people out of fuel poverty,’ she added
