Commercial buildings across the UK are producing significantly more carbon than estimated at the design stage…
A new study from the government’s innovation agency Innovate UK has revealed UK commercial buildings are not meeting carbon targets set during the design process.
According to the data, buildings are producing an average of 3.8 times more carbon than was expected during the design stage of the construction process.
Using six years worth of data from Innovate UK’s Building Performance Evaluation (BPE) Programme, the study found that only one of the 48 buildings studied produced the amount of carbon specified by its design. Some of the buildings were found to have emissions 10 times the rate calculated for Part L compliance.
The study, ‘Building Performance Evaluation Programme: Findings from Non-Domestic Projects’, found one of the reasons behind this was complex energy controls and building management systems (BMS).
Two-thirds of the buildings studied utilised renewable energy and yet a significant proportion of these experienced problems that negatively impacted energy consumption and carbon emissions.
The report was released to coincide with the launch of The Building Data Exchange, which was set up by The Digital Catapult. This aims to provide previously unexplored information on best practice, as well as identifying problems in the construction of energy efficient buildings.
