Memorandum submitted by the Carbon Trust
THE QUESTIONS
The questions put by the Education and Skills
Select Committee in respect of its inquiry into sustainable schools
that the Carbon Trust is addressing are:
— Will the Building Schools for the
Future (BSF) investment programme ensure that schools are sustainable—environmentally,
economically and socially?
— What are the cost implications of
this?
— Is the information available under
the programme adequate in ensuring that the programme is effective
in its aims of delivering sustainable schools?
OUR RESPONSE
Drawing from our extensive knowledge of energy
efficiency, low carbon technologies and buildings, including in
local authorities and the schools estate, our response to the
questions raised is as follows.
1. Will BSF ensure that schools are sustainable—environmentally,
economically and socially?
BSF is by far the largest investment in the
schools estate in recent times. In theory, this scale of investment
in England (£45 billion over 10-15 years, subject to ministerial
approval) offers a major, unprecedented opportunity to improve
the energy efficiency and reduce the carbon footprint of our schools
estate going forward. In practice, the extent to which energy
efficiency and low carbon design feature in the philosophy and
strategy of BSF will dictate the importance the majority of stakeholders
in BSF attach to these key elements of sustainability.
The DfES document, Building schools for the
future—a new approach to capital investment, published
in 2004, makes no reference to "energy", "carbon"
or "sustainability". The short answer to the question
put, therefore, could be "No". However, that would be
to ignore the positive work of some individual local authorities
and education and building professionals—and the dawning
recognition in DfES that there is a role for it to play to use
the BSF opportunity significantly to reduce carbon dioxide emissions
associated with the schools estate. There are examples of attempts
to reduce the carbon footprint of schools under BSF—the
Carbon Trust is involved in a number of these through its various
energy efficiency and low carbon advice services is helping building
designers and managers (including those working in the schools'
sector) to tackle energy waste and reduce their carbon footprints.
Our approach is to start with the local authorities
and develop a strategic plan to form the basis for top-down action
across their estates. Our Local Authority Carbon Management programme
is currently working with 98 councils across the UK, over a fifth
of the sector. It is designed to develop carbon management implementation
strategies which will reduce emissions under the direct control
of the local authority such as buildings, vehicle fleets, street-lighting
and landfill sites. It also provides practical support to organisations:
by helping them identify carbon saving opportunities; by providing
tools to analyse energy consumption; and by delivering workshop
support for staff and senior managers to enable them to embed
carbon management into the day to day business of the council.
Specifically in relation to buildings (including
school buildings), our Design Advice Service works with designers
to consider ways in which low carbon building measures can be
incorporated into their design specification. For example, we
are providing advice to two primary schools wishing to achieve
a 40% improvement in energy efficiency. The schools are both being
developed through design and construct contracts under BSF.
We think this is a start which, within our resources,
we can build on. However, we think that far more could, and should,
be achieved. BSF has huge leverage potential to transform the
way the market delivers not just school buildings but buildings
in general.
However, converting that potential into actual
public benefit requires bolder, coordinated, strategic thinking
to re-shape BSF whilst there is time for the changes to take positive
effect. There is no systematic requirement to ensure that BSF
investments in the nation's long term asset base take and apply
best practice in energy efficiency and low carbon design. Moving
forward incrementally—for example, by specifying a BREEAM
"very good" standard as a minimum for school building
designs—shows a willingness to travel in the right direction
but insufficient appreciation of the destination, the travel time,
or the sense of urgency attaching to reducing our carbon dioxide
emissions. We think DfES and local authorities need to go further.
In our view, the carbon goal for BSF should
be absolutely clear. New schools built under BSF will have a design
life which runs past the middle of this century. Therefore, so
far as carbon dioxide emissions and energy running costs are concerned,
the schools being specified and designed today will need to be
fit for purpose for the low carbon world we and others are seeking
to build over the coming decades. This means that the carbon footprint
for schools built or refurbished over the BSF investment period
will need to be significantly less than half the footprint of
schools built in the late 1990s. Simply following current Building
Regulations standards—all that is required under BSF—signals
a failure to appreciate the opportunity which public investment
and public procurement offers to lead the way towards substantially
lower carbon footprints for school buildings going forward.
We think that unless it is made clear that BSF
will only invest in and incentivise school buildings with low
life cycle carbon footprints, the opportunity for public investment
to drive market transformation to deliver low carbon (school)
buildings will have been lost. It is said that BSF is the biggest
investment in schools since the Victorian era and public investment
policy should seek to secure this opportunity to create a sustainable,
low carbon schools estate. (It is ironic that in some respects
the Victorian, thermally heavyweight buildings offer an internal
environment more resilient to rising summer temperatures associated
with climate change than lightweight schools built in the 1960s
and 70s).
A complementary consideration is that an environmentally
friendly building in which to teach sustainable development acts
as a living exemplar and illustrates the school sustainable development
curriculum for the upcoming generation. Although it is not easy
to quantify these benefits, it is worth bearing them in mind as
part of the wider sustainable development agenda going forward
and the importance of shifting consumer and citizenship behaviour
in favour of being part of the low carbon economy. This would
fit in well with the Citizenship Agenda being taken forward by
Defra and others.
Lastly, in this section, we have seen a recognition
by DfES that reducing carbon dioxide emissions and getting to
grips with energy wasteful buildings stock is, in a clear way,
different from the other items on the sustainability agenda—given
the enormity of the climate change challenge facing us all. The
driving force for this recognition is the huge demand for action
from those in the schools design and building communities. It
is important that the dialogues now established via consultations
and conferences (like the one DfES hosted on 4 December) are capitalised
upon and feed positively into policy making. Where we think more
progress could, and should, be made is in the setting of strategic
direction for BSF from the top to ensure that school building
projects are required to meet significantly higher energy efficiency
and carbon footprint standards not just in design but in construction
and operation.
2. What are the cost implications of this?
If whole life costing principles were used to
design buildings, then in theory the current capital cost premium
over conventionally designed buildings would be offset by reduced
operational costs, a better internal environment and an educationally
beneficial building for teachers and students alike.
However, whole life costing is not the norm
for investment appraisal. First cost drives decision making because
most investments are considered over a short term horizon against
a fixed budget with competing demands. In a changing environment,
this is not in the interests either of asset value over the longer
term or of reducing lifetime running costs. Some of the principal
issues we think are relevant to the Committee's Inquiry, so far
as energy/carbon reduction goals are concerned are:
(i) Capital and revenue budgets are managed
separately. Therefore, running cost savings are not easily
related to additional capital investment. "Spend to save"
and whole life costing approaches are that much harder to implement
in these circumstances. Furthermore, even the 5-10% that a low
carbon new design currently costs over conventional new build
is seen as potentially compromising the provision of other schools'
amenities or reducing the number of schools built or refurbished.
Budget ceilings and other demands perceived to be more important
tend to drive energy/carbon considerations down the agenda. This
is a significant barrier which we think should be addressed without
delay.
(ii) Building energy management. Unless
this is of a high standard the benefits of low energy/carbon design
will not be fully realised. This is a common failing across many
building sectors. There is a gap between performance as designed,
performance as built, and performance as operated. (The awaited
implementation of the EU Energy Performance of Buildings Directive
will, we hope, begin to make this particular gap in design/operated
performance transparent to users and decision makers). Notwithstanding
the huge impact BSF will have on new build design and refurbishment
activity, investment alone is not sufficient. It is also essential
that buildings are well managed and designed to be capable of
being well managed. To achieve the best possible energy/carbon
performance from a building requires appropriate training for
building managers so that they gain a good appreciation of the
factors which impact on performance and how to address them. We
can see no evidence that this aspect of BSF has been considered
strategically.
(iii) Incorporating energy efficiency
in new build over and above Building Regulations standards does
not carry significant extra cost. This is one of the main
conclusions of our research to understand the business case for
low carbon buildings. (We will be publishing this work in the
New Year). Moving to buildings with half the carbon footprint
or less currently carries a higher cost premium mainly because
of the comparative lack of best practice knowledge and the early
cost premium of new and emerging low carbon technologies. Both
these cost elements could, over time, be reduced.
(iv) Improving the performance of existing
stock through refurbishment is more challenging. The problem
with a large part of the schools building stock is its age. Many
buildings pre-date 1985, the year in which energy efficiency standards
in Part L of Building Regulations were first introduced. The post-war
school buildings expansion programme did not have energy efficiency,
low carbon or sustainability on the list of items to be taken
into account during investment appraisal. As a consequence, the
corrective measures required to introduce energy efficiency to
these buildings rarely have paybacks of under 10 years. Furthermore,
the opportunity points in the life cycle to make worthwhile savings
occur less frequently and in some cases demolition may well be
the best option—particularly if demographic and societal
changes have made the location of the school no longer appropriate.
(v) Public private partnership and the
Public Finance Initiative (PFI). This is one of the key finance
mechanisms whereby public sector buildings are designed and built.
In theory, PFI offers the opportunity to take a longer term view
of investment and use whole life costing as the basis of investment
appraisal. In practice, this opportunity can easily be missed,
or timed out because of inadequate opportunity to devise and consider
low carbon, energy efficient design options. The main reason is
energy efficiency and CO2 emissions (beyond the specified minimum
regulatory standards) are not regarded as important items for
consideration. They can therefore become casualties of contract
negotiation, especially if budgets unexpectedly tighten against
expenditure and competing demands.
3. Is the information available under the
programme adequate in ensuring that the programme is effective
in its aims of delivering sustainable schools?
Although some low carbon school buildings have
been designed and built, these are few in number and of one-off,
unique designs. Performance in use is rarely used to inform new
building designs. Consequently, there is a dearth of information
on good practice low carbon design, and an even bigger gap in
knowledge about how to manage low carbon school buildings. Best
practice in low carbon school building design and refurbishment
is scarce. Good ideas, practices and experiences, hard learnt
in one local authority or one architectural practice, are not
being made available to others engaged in the same national endeavour.
Therefore, there is a high risk that we will continue to see more
of the same—ie, most buildings scraping by the standards
of the day and a smattering of better buildings designed to be
energy efficient and low carbon in use. If good practice starts
and stops within the environs of the schools in question, the
opportunity to raise standards nationwide will have been missed.
Codifying what is proposed as "best practice",
peer reviewing it, and systematic sharing of professionally accredited
knowledge and experience amongst designers and building managers
via training etc should, in our view, be essential, strategic
elements of BSF (and, we suggest, any large, long-term public
investment programme).
The benefits of this approach are significant.
It costs time and money for individual local authorities, building
professionals and other interested parties to fundamentally review
existing practice and rectify under-performing buildings. There
is a huge opportunity to use publicly funded investment programmes
like BSF to raise the design, build and operating standards for
the public estate. Unfortunately, we can see no evidence that
the designers of BSF have considered these aspects strategically.
In a capital programme of the order of several tens of £billions
over 10-15 years or so, we think this is an inadequacy of design
and process. The good news, however, is that it is not too late
to think about, and rectify, them.
December 2006
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