Fri 26 Sep 2008
Super Saver
It has been a quiet month in the life of this superhero. Nobody’s bothering to save the planet; they are more concerned with saving their jobs. I did ask some of the bankers at Lehman brothers leaving their desks with cardboard boxes full of their possessions if they would be recycling the boxes, but the green air suddenly turned blue. Kevin Brennan, head of sustainability at VELUX, warns that the parlous state of the UK property market is posing a serious threat to the UK’s green agenda and hindering further development of eco-technologies.“As many housebuilders are forced to cut costs, those still building are increasingly eliminating what are often deemed ‘added extras’ and eco-technologies are one of the first things to go,” said Brennan.
At least sustainability is on the agenda somewhere. London Development Events (www.ldevents.net) are running a Sustainability conference on October 9th in London. Paula Breen of Treasury Holdings UK will define zero carbon, although I don’t think I’ve even met her. Andrew Eagles of Sustainable Homes will talk trade offs between the sustainable code, affordable housing and total housing and Mark Farmer of EC Harris will go to Code Six. Other talks include The Carbon Challenge by Jane Forshaw of English Partnerships and The Barratt Green House by Andrew Sutton of Gaunt Francis. Conference chairman is Mike Youkee of the Mayor’s Housing Supply Sub-Group and the former Head of Housing Initiatives at Quintain and joint CEO of Greenwich Peninsula.
I can exclusively reveal why Transport Secretary Ruth Kelly suddenly resigned during the labour Party conference in Manchester. You see as Gordon Brown hid from the financial chaos lapping around him, sipping a glass of Highland malt, I flew in through the window and persuaded him to ban transport. Nobody was travelling to work any more, so there were no commuters left, be it by train, plane or automobile. A new Cabinet post for a Minister of Bicycles and Footpaths, with overpasses to avoid the builders and bankersleeping rough, is expected to be announced shortly.
Good to see What House? Award winner Hodson Developments flying the biomass technology flag at its development at Chobham Lakes in Surrey. Dried wood chips, sourced from the Albury Estate near Guildford, are fed into a large on-site storage facility. The chips are slowly burnt in the furnace to produce sufficient heat energy to supply all the hot water and heating to the properties. The result: lower fuels bills and carbon neutrality. Hodson is even setting up a residents’ car share scheme, although I cannot see the Chobham gin and jag set lowering themselves to car share. Mind you it makes for a sustainable-shit excuse if you get caught in the car with a neighbour late at night.
From the heart of Surrey to the heart of New York. George Bush may have thought the Kyoto Summit was a Japanese mountain, but at least one American developer is showing some environmental respect. A2 Investment Group is behind the Tribeca townhouses in Lower Manhattan. Solar panels on the roof provide supplementary hot water to the apartments, while the entire development employs a zero-waste programme with energy-star rated appliances in every apartment. There is also a bicycle storage unit. Chesterton International is selling the apartments from £752,000. Damn I’ve just seen the note at the bottom of the press release – ‘Please consider the environment before printing this email.’ Should they not put this plea at the top of the email?
BRE is chuffed to beats that its GreenPrint sustainable communities methodology has been adopted to develop a new district in Amsterdam, comprising residential units, retail, a school and open green space. “It is particularly significant for us as the Dutch have always been ahead of the game in regard to sustainability. We see this as the first step to getting GreenPrint used on sites across the Netherlands and across Europe,” said James Fisher, BRE’s Head of Sustainable Communities.
Now £1 billion is a lot of money and that has been pledged by the government to help households improve their energy efficiency and hit carbon emission reduction targets. But in welcoming the announcement, the Construction Products Association points out that the investment needed to bring all existing housing stock up to current energy efficient regulations is close to £200 billion. And in any case the £1 billion is not even government largesse. “It is money provided by the energy companies under their Carbon Emissions Reduction Target. It is therefore money that all of us have already paid to the energy companies for our energy. It is recycled money,” said Michael Ankers, chief executive of the Construction Products Association.
He also calls it perverse that we pay the full rate of VAT on key energy saving products such as boilers and double glazing, but a lower rate of VAT on the use of the energy itself. The Construction Products Association represents the UK’s manufacturers and supplier of construction products, a sector with an annual turnover of £40 billion. A bet it isn’t £40 billion this year.
Posted by Rupert Bates
in Andrew Eagles, Andrew Sutton, Construction Products Association, EC Harris, Gaunt Francis, Gordon Brown, Hodson Developments, Kevin Brennan, Mark Farmer, Michael Ankers, Mike Youkee, Paula Breen, Ruth Kelly, Sustainable Homes, The Zero Carbon Column, Treasury Holdings UK, Velux on Fri 26 Sep 2008
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