Delivering energy efficient buildings: A design procedure to demonstrate environmental and economic benefits

One of the most significant environmental impacts of buildings occurs through the consumption of energy during their operational lives. It is a well-known fact that buildings in the UK are only a fraction as efficient as current approaches and available technologies permit. The effective management of the design process is pivotal in the delivery of buildings with improved energy efficiency but, despite this, the monitoring of energy performance is not currently a typical part of the construction design process. This paper describes the development of a design management procedure in which energy performance is monitored from the earliest phases of building inception. The decision support tool gives guidance to design teams at a stage in the design process where there is currently a lack of information on project-specific energy performance issues, and their environmental and economic implications. Life cycle cost performance is captured through elemental life cycle costing, in which the implementation of systems to improve efficiency are considered as a function of additional and avoided life cycle costs. This procedure has been developed through public-sector private finance initiative (PFI) projects, which allow a longer-term view of both capital and operating costs, since the contractors are an integral part of the long-term management consortium. The much greater level of opportunity presented in these contracts and the potential to influence the wider marketplace could offer a breakthrough for the wider acceptance of environmentally sensitive building design.