Sustainability & Construction Newsletter #35
Mitsubishi Electric Living Environmental Systems UK
Cooling, Heating, Ventilation and Controls
Welcome to the 35th edition of our Sustainability & Construction newsletter!
This edition spotlights innovative solutions for a more sustainable future. Explore our comprehensive recycling scheme for responsible HVAC equipment disposal. Learn about the "Energy Reuse Factor" metric for data center efficiency, and get a glimpse into cutting-edge Net Zero technologies from our Futurebuild graduate report.
We are also pleased to announce the release of our latest CPD topic (Issue 85) – F Gas Regulations and the Future of Refrigerants. There's a complimentary launch webinar on March 26th at 11am to answer your questions. Click here to register your place.
Stay informed with industry updates on Net Zero office buildings, embodied carbon reporting, and key sustainability performance metrics. Discover the critical role of corporate climate action, a global alliance for green building finance, and the rising importance of whole life carbon assessments.
In our "Construction Voices" section, Mike Clarke , Director of Membership for the UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) , explores how to improve the built environment's sustainability through industry collaboration.?
Together, let's build a sustainable future. Dive in and discover how you can make a difference!?
Latest Mitsubishi Electric News
We’ve built a comprehensive recycling scheme that will collect and recycle old HVAC equipment. This helps installers remove waste from site, while ensuring as much material is recovered as possible.
We are pleased to announce the release of our latest CPD topic (Issue 85) – F Gas Regulations and the Future of Refrigerants. There is also a launch webinar that examines the regulations with regards to working with low-GWP refrigerants across the HVAC industry both now and in the future. This will take place on the 26th March at 11am. Click here to register your place.
Shahid Rahman explores the new metric for data centres. Regulations and market demand that focus on energy efficiency and sustainability are impacting the design and operation of data centres worldwide.
Our graduate, Emmanuel Uzim , reports on his first visit to Futurebuild. The exhibition brings together the entire construction supply chain. Its mission is to showcase, debate and understand the advancements in sustainable construction and the emerging technologies that will make Net Zero possible.
Lord Deben talks about the climate crisis. As a businessman himself, he knows that companies need as much certainty as possible to thrive and to give them more flexibility for the uncertain things that life will always throw up.
Latest Industry news
Understand which retrofit measures are the most carbon and cost-effective when looking to upgrade the energy performance of a commercial office building.
This study explores the carbon impacts of the industry standard approach to the design, construction, and marketing of speculative office space and examines the effects of continued tenant turnover on whole life carbon.?
UK Green Building Council (UKGBC) has launched new guidance on Scope 3 embodied carbon measurement and reporting, for stakeholders across the built environment. Scope 3 represents a proportion of an organisation’s indirect embodied carbon emissions that can constitute up to 80-95% of its total value chain footprint.
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Find out the 7 key aspects of sustainable building practices. From Energy Efficiency to Biodiversity and Ecology.
Combatting climate change will take a united global effort. As major emitters of greenhouse gas emissions, companies are encouraged to do their part by reducing their carbon footprints and fostering sustainable practices. However, not all emissions can be avoided, and currently, we are far behind where we need to be to achieve the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 °C.
Each of the major green building rating systems for the UK, Australia, and the USA have announced a first-of-its-kind alliance aiming to unlock sustainable finance for the built environment.
The RICS whole life carbon assessment (WLCA) standard is set to become the world-leading standard for consistent and accurate carbon measurement in the built environment. This 2nd edition builds upon the success of the existing RICS WLCA standard, having been extended to cover all buildings and infrastructure throughout the built environment life cycle.
Retrofitting commercial buildings is critical for decarbonising and enhancing resilience to the climate crisis.
The EP100 Progress and Insights Report 2023 details how energy efficiency is key to Net Zero, and how lowering our overall energy consumption will make the energy transition quicker and simpler.
Join MEP embodied carbon leaders for a discussion about the data behind MEP embodied carbon, what you can do about it in your day-to-day and strategic work, and how to advocate for MEP carbon reduction with market stakeholders. Register for the event which is being held on Thursday, March 21st.
Construction Voices
Here, we invite industry leaders to share their valuable insights and expertise on creating a sustainable built environment. This week we include an article written by Mike Clarke , Director of Membership for the UK Green Building Council.
Collaboration is key to Climate Action
At the UK Green Building Council, our mission is to radically improve the sustainability of the built environment by uniting industry in transforming the way it is planned, designed, constructed, operated and repurposed. That’s a big mission and there is no way we can achieve it without the support and collaboration of our ambitious membership. Last week, I was at Futurebuild, a huge sustainability conference and exhibition at Excel in London. Together with my colleagues, we delivered two main stage keynotes, three panel discussions and the launch of our guidance for Scope 3 Embodied Carbon reporting. We had an award-winning stand too, and we couldn’t have made it happen without some brilliant collaborative work with Mitsubishi Electric, Chetwood’s Architects, Interface, and construction company ISG. Over the three days at the show, I talked to over two hundred people about their organisation’s sustainability journey and their climate action ambitions.
I heard about great projects where sharing data, processes, and innovations and genuinely working in collaboration, had offered all the partners huge gains. For me that just reinforces my belief that only by sharing our ideas and inviting others to contribute, can we help build a more inclusive and sustainable future.
We all work collaboratively, this isn’t something new, but it did make me think just how much faster we could go in addressing the climate and nature crisis if we did much more of it. If we could put aside competition and “open source” our ideas and solutions. Open Sourcing is not a new concept, in fact the phrase was first used over 25 years ago at a tech conference in Palo Alto, California but it’s still a powerful tool for innovation, collaboration, and problem-solving.
Open Sourcing our ideas can lead to more innovative and effective solutions, it can reduce duplication of effort and allow others to build on our work. This can help accelerate innovation and progress. Open-sourcing ideas can help promote transparency and accountability. By making our work public, we can invite feedback and critique from others, leading to more rigorous and robust ideas, improving quality. Might open-sourcing more of our ideas help us tackle the climate and nature crisis quickly?
We are always thinking of new ways to bring our membership together as we strive to accelerate the pace in the race to Net Zero and beyond. At UKGBC we are working with our network to deliver more progress for nature and resilience and supporting Built Environment organisations and professionals to be at the forefront of the drive for positive change.
We know it can be difficult to convert your climate action ambitions into tangible action and at UKGBC, our members collaborate and innovate to achieve their goals. With support and guidance, businesses from across the built environment, manufacturers like Mitsubishi Electric, clients, developers, banks, builders, suppliers, architects, local authorities, universities, housing providers, and engineers are all working towards Net Zero targets.? Our membership knows a ‘business-as-usual’ approach will fall well short of achieving Net Zero carbon by 2050. The need for increased ambition and the translation of commitments into tangible and measurable action has never been greater.? Delivery – at pace and at scale – is key.
If you would like to find out more about how UKGBC can power the acceleration of your sustainability journey, offering all your teams cutting-edge insights, innovations, and solutions and equip them with knowledge and skills, visit our website.? If you want to hear more about our recently published guidance for Embodied Carbon Scope 3 Reporting, book a free place on our webinar next week .
We hope you've found the content of this newsletter useful and relevant. In each edition, we'll focus on bringing you the latest news and topics around sustainability and construction. If there are any news articles you would like us to feature, or if you would like to be a guest contributor for Construction Voices, please get in touch with us .
Find out more about our new Sustainability and Construction team here .