Kitabı oku: «How Can I Stop Climate Change: What is it and how to help», sayfa 7

the workplace

Just as big energy savings could be made in the housing sector, we can also smarten up the carbon impact of the workplace – whether that’s a major corporation, government building or a home study.

Energy-efficient buildings play an important role. Good design can, for example, make the most of natural light and provide shade from too much sun. Here are three examples:

A recent Royal Navy building in Arbroath uses thermal heat stores and sunpipes to make the most of natural warmth and daylight in an energy-efficient office building for the Royal Marines.

The Swiss Re building, affectionately known as the gherkin, was designed as ‘London’s first environmentally progressive working environment’, making use of natural light and ventilation, with an extracted air cooling system.

A Tesco store at Diss in Norfolk is designed to use 20 per cent less energy. Small steps such as adding doors to chill display units can make a huge difference to a supermarket’s energy use.

For what you can do in the workplace, turn to Chapter 9.

PRETTY PICKLE:

London’s iconic Gherkin reveals how architects can combine cutting-edge design with environmentally advanced features to reduce the carbon footprints of office buildings.

Making the scale of change needed to tackle climate change will take more than a handful of companies doing their bit. Good news, then, that one of the UK’s biggest employers, the National Health Service (NHS), is trying to get to grips with its energy use. The NHS employs more than 1 million people and estimates suggest it emits 1 million tonnes of carbon a year. Hospitals have been set targets for reducing emissions and the Carbon Trust (a government-funded independent company that helps businesses and the public sector to do this) is working with hospitals and primary care trusts to find the most cost-effective ways of achieving their emission targets. Tom Cumberlege, Public Sector Manager at the Carbon Trust, says part of the challenge is to get all the staff involved, rather than leaving energy management to the estate manager. As with homes, schools and commercial buildings, the staff at hospitals who are there day in day out can make a big difference to their impact on the environment.

changing behaviour, cutting emissions

Changing the way people behave is one way of cutting emissions in the workplace, according to Chris Large. Chris manages Global Action Plan’s Environment Champions programme, working with businesses to reduce their impact on the environment. He recruits volunteer Champions from across an organisation to help identify how changes can be made. The Champions come up with ways of persuading their colleagues to save energy, recycle more and use fewer resources. They audit environmental impacts across the business, looking at energy use, lights left on, waste and recycling rates. ‘Champions think of things that people can do to make a difference,’ Chris explains. ‘It can be really simple guidance, such as how to print double-sided, or how to spell-check before your print.’

Some offices have introduced rewards for people who turn off their computers at the end of the day; others issue parking-ticket style warnings to those who forget. Champions also work on ways to get their message across. Knowing your office throws away a stack of paper higher than Big Ben can motivate people to think before they print, Chris says.

Three to four months into the project, the Champions carry out a follow-up audit to see what they have achieved.

And the results? Staff at the Britannia Building Society’s London head office, to take one example, boosted paper recycling by 59 per cent; in the Leek office, staff saved £3,000 on fuel bills. A survey of employees’ attitudes at Britannia’s Leek office found that nearly three-quarters claimed to have changed their habits at work as a result of the scheme, and nearly a third said they had also changed what they do at home.

a degree cooler - London School of Economics

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) is one of 48 universities so far taking part in a government-sponsored effort to curb the carbon impact of getting a degree in the UK.

With more than 170,000 square metres of floor space and 40 properties around the capital the LSE is energy-hungry: in 2006/07 its energy budget was some £2.5 million for gas, oil and electricity. The use of renewable electricity in many buildings has already reduced the greenhouse gas emissions significantly to 6,920 tonnes in 2007 and numerous energy efficiency projects underway which shave another 1,000 tonnes off that.

The Higher Education Carbon Management Scheme, supported by the Carbon Trust, offers institutions advice on cutting waste, energy, emissions – and bills. And it seems to be working: the universities taking part in 2006 generated a saving of 55,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide and £3 million.

LSE’s Environmental Manager, Victoria Hands says: ‘The School is looking at all areas of activity and involving a broad range of stakeholders to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. Its new Academic Building – designed to achieve an ‘excellent’ rating by the Building Research Establishment’s environmental method (BREEAM) – incorporates a number of energy-saving features. For starters they didn’t simply bulldoze the old building and start again, with all the new materials and waste that would imply: parts of the old building have been re-used with the foundation, the façade and the structure reintegrated into the design. A ground-source pump extracts cold water from an aquifer approximately 75 metres deep to provide comfort cooling to teaching rooms and lecture theatres. The basement houses recycling facilities and secure bicycle parking, showers and lockers. A highly efficient boiler has replaced the 1980s model, making a significant impact on energy consumption. Elongated windows on the lower floors and an atrium allow lots of daylight in, reducing the need for electric light, which is further controlled by movement detectors. Offices and seminar rooms have adjustable fan units which may be turned off if windows are open. Lecture theatres and classrooms have air quality and temperature sensors to regulate heating or cooling. Solar thermal collectors on the roof will supplement hot water requirements. The roof has also been strengthened to support two wind turbines that may be installed with the appropriate planning permission. A rooftop garden attracts birds and insects.

LSE has adopted sustainable and renewable energy measures throughout its buildings. New monitoring systems regulate indoor temperatures providing heating and cooling in the most efficient way. These systems are kept at a minimum during holidays. A software programme controls energy consumption in many buildings and halls of residence.

Director of planning and development, Julian Robinson, says he’s proud to be working for an organisation that is serious about its wider environmental obligations. He sees the new academic building setting a benchmark ‘which we will expect to exceed on our next major building project’.

a healthy approach to cutting emissions

Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in London spends more than £10 million a year on energy – so finding ways to cut consumption made financial sense as well as helping to cut carbon emissions.

Working with the Carbon Trust, the two hospitals, which treat 750,000 patients every year, aim to knock a fifth off their carbon emissions, with savings of 14,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide already identified.

Good housekeeping and better energy awareness among the 9,500 staff will help reduce energy use, says David Porter, Head of Estates Management at Guy’s and St Thomas’. But the Trust is also investing in improved technology to boost efficiency.

Staff are encouraged to switch off lights, recycle more and think about energy use as they go about their jobs, with posters around the sites and energy-saving messages on the Trust’s intranet. Staff energy reps meet regularly to come up with new ideas.

A £2 million programme is upgrading lighting controls, improving insulation and fitting thermostatic valves on radiators in the hospitals, with estimated annual savings of £1 million. Maintenance staff are looking at how the hospital buildings can be run more efficiently, ensuring that ventilation systems are turned down when units are not in use. Plans to install combined heat and power on both sites will allow the hospitals to generate some of their own electricity, reducing energy bills and carbon emissions significantly.

David Porter says, ‘Everyone can make a contribution, no matter how small each individual action appears. Small changes can add up to significant amounts, both in terms of financial savings and environmental benefits.’

industry

Industry accounts for a big chunk (18 per cent) of the UK’s carbon dioxide emissions; and electricity-generating power stations are responsible for a further 27 per cent. Between these two sectors, nearly half the UK’s emissions are outside the direct control of most of us.

Economic experts at the IPCC say that setting a high price for carbon would make it more attractive for industry to be more efficient. Energy-efficiency measures could create savings of 7-10 per cent without a carbon price, increasing to 23-46 per cent savings if the price of a tonne of carbon rose to US $100.

In the UK the government has so far used a number of financial regulations and incentives to get industry to change. It has sought to encourage action to cut emissions, providing advice and guidance through the Carbon Trust and Envirowise (see p.390). It has introduced a special tax – the Climate Change Levy – on the energy that business and public sector uses. It has also backed emissions trading as a means of encouraging energy efficiency, with the UK part of the Europe-wide Emissions Trading Scheme (see Chapter 6). Originally designed for large energy users, Emissions Trading has subsequently been extended – so that more companies will have to buy the right to pollute.

For more on how we need to clean up the electricity sector, see Chapter 5.

business savings

Chemicals manufacturer Holliday Pigments in Hull found it could save energy by using some of the heat generated by processes in its factory to generate steam, saving some £50,000 from energy bills and reducing its carbon footprint. Broadcaster Sky cut its footprint by 5 per cent in 2005-2006 through steps such as improving energy efficiency in its buildings and vehicle fleet. It also set up a carbon credit card for staff, giving points for carbon-friendly behaviour such as cycling to work. The company switched to renewable electricity supplies and offset its remaining emissions by investing in renewable energy projects in New Zealand and Bulgaria.

offsetting – does it count?

Carbon offsetting has become big business in recent years with companies offering to offset emissions by investing in carbon-saving projects. The idea is that for every tonne of carbon dioxide produced, a tonne is either removed from the atmosphere – by planting trees intended to act as a carbon sink – or avoided, by replacing a polluting activity with a clean alternative, such as renewable energy.

Some offsetting schemes have been criticised on a number of counts. Although trees remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, they must remain in situ to prevent the carbon being released again, so there would have to be strong guarantees that forests planted this year to offset emissions were not cut down a couple of years later. There are other problems with tree-planting offset schemes, too: large plantations where just one type of tree is grown are bad news for wildlife and can cause problems for people locally.

Offsetting schemes that invest in renewable energy projects can benefit communities in the developing world, and a gold standard has been established for offsetting schemes that deliver genuine benefits. This guarantees that the investment is made in a scheme that would have struggled to find funding in any other way.

However robust an individual offset scheme, Friends of the Earth points out that it is simply a way for the industrialised world to buy the right to continue polluting rather than cutting emissions at source. Offsetting allows companies and individuals to claim that they are tackling carbon emissions when they may not be doing anything to cut emissions at source. Such an approach will do little to reduce the UK’s emissions of carbon dioxide. The spread of carbon offsetting may have helped stimulate awareness of climate change, but many people now argue that it should be a last resort – and that genuine cuts to carbon emissions must come first.

local authorities

The government estimates local authorities can cut their own energy use by 11 per cent. Although local authorities themselves are responsible for a small proportion of UK emissions they have powers beyond their own buildings, land and work force: they also influence suppliers and services through the goods and services they buy; they control local planning and development, and are responsible for green spaces and promoting public transport.

A scattering of local authorities have embraced the need to take action on climate change. More than 220 have signed a commitment to make this a cornerstone of their policies. The year 2000 saw the launch of The ‘Nottingham Declaration on Climate Change’ (updated in 2005), in which all signed up councils were encouraged to develop a climate change action plan and set targets for reducing emissions.

Nottingham City Council, the first authority to sign, has reduced its carbon emissions by 30,000 tonnes by using renewable energy supplies. Its policies have helped stabilise emissions from transport in the city and boosted recycling rates. The council is now looking to become carbon neutral.

schools

Some 6,000 primary and secondary schools across the UK are involved in the Eco-School scheme, which encourages teachers and pupils to work together to come up with ways to save energy, improve recycling and save water at school.

As well as cutting emissions, schools taking part find the scheme has other benefits, including better links to the wider community, improvements in the school ethos and relations between staff and pupils, and reduced bills. Some funding is available from the government to support low-carbon and energy-saving measures, but critics say there is not nearly enough to go round.

transport

Road transport accounts for between a fifth and a quarter of UK emissions. Emissions from transport are on the up: more and more vehicles on the road mean that carbon dioxide emissions have risen by 9 per cent since 1990. With government figures showing carbon dioxide emissions from transport set to soar, can anything be done to save energy and emissions in the transport sector?

According to the experts, savings are possible but require a big shift in behaviour, encouraged by changes to transport policies – locally and at national level.

on the road

When it comes to travelling by car, there are two basic ways to reduce the level of emissions: driving more efficiently and driving less.

driving more efficiently

More efficient driving means getting more miles out of every gallon of fuel or using different fuels. So we need to look at the way people drive and the types of car they use. The performance of modern vehicles varies enormously, from small vehicles that can do 65-70 mpg, to big gas-guzzlers that manage less than 15 mpg. Carbon dioxide emissions are directly related to miles per gallon and so can vary from 104 g/km for a Toyota Prius hybrid to 520 g/km for a sports car (Lamborghini Diablo 132) and 387 g/km for a 4X4 (Toyota Land Cruiser). Within each class of car performance varies too: at 186-219 g/km, for example, a Lexus hybrid is much more polluting than the Prius. An average motor emits 90 kg of carbon dioxide for every full tank of petrol used.

A UK government-commissioned study found that, assuming the car will continue to be the way most people choose to get around, the best thing to do will be to make cars as low-carbon as possible. The European Union has set a target for car manufacturers to reduce average emissions from new cars to 140 g/km carbon dioxide by 2010; new cars sold in the UK in 2006 were above this average, at 167.2 g/km. Tougher emissions standards for vehicles would make one of the biggest contributions to cutting transport’s carbon fuel bill.

driving less

Another way of cutting emissions is to reduce the numbers of car journeys. In the UK 17 million people go to work by car. Workplace travel schemes can make it easier to leave the car at home – with employers providing cycle facilities, showers and loans to buy a bike, or setting up lift-share schemes or loans for season tickets on public transport.

SUPER CYCLEWAYS:

By 2025 London could be the cycling capital of the world. Around £4 million will see cycling become a fully-funded part of the public transport network. Plans include a new free bike lending scheme (offering 6,000 bikes every 300 m) and 12 cycle highways to make pedal power a real travel choice for everyone.

Flexible working can reduce the need to commute – working from home one day a week can cut transport emissions by 20 per cent. A study by BT into the impact of home working found that, on average, employees working from home reduced their carbon dioxide emissions by 15.2 kg per week. Even assuming that some savings would be lost by increases in home energy use, the study found total emissions for 5,000 employees were reduced by some 3,663 tonnes per year.

Cycling and walking can be easy alternatives for short car trips, but longer journeys and city-wide travel need better public transport. Good bus services, light rail and trams can provide alternatives to driving, substantially reducing carbon dioxide emissions.

The city of Curitiba in Brazil has been held up as a model of what public transport can achieve if investment and urban planning keep the needs of people in mind. The city, which has a growing population of more than 1.6 million people, invested in buses as its main public transport, creating special bus-only avenues. The system, which is cheap to use, carries some 2.14 million passengers a day despite high levels of car ownership. The result has been cleaner city air and some of lowest rates of fuel consumption per person in Brazil.

Freiburg in Germany (see also pp.94-95) is one of many European cities to have developed a low-carbon approach to getting about. The city has 160 km of sign-posted cycle paths, cycle-only streets and special access on one-way routes. Buses and trams carry 67 million people a year, with cheap tickets for families.

In France the Mayor of Paris has introduced a low-cost bike rental scheme in the capital, providing bicycles at 750 stations around the city. Users of the Velib bike scheme can buy either an annual pass (priced at £20) or a one-day pass (less than £1), with short journeys completely free. Paris has some 230 miles of cycle paths and the number of cyclists in the city has increased by 50 per cent in the past ten years.

A charge on drivers entering the city centre, combined with investment in public transport, has cut the level of traffic in inner London, with increases in the numbers of people travelling by tube and bus. One opinion survey found that 1 in 5 drivers would leave their car at home and use public transport if road charging schemes were introduced across the UK.

Improvements to public transport can tempt drivers out of their cars for longer distance trips, with both coach and rail travel offering lower carbon dioxide emissions per passenger mile. Planning policies can also have an impact – for instance local development plans can ensure new shops are accessible by public transport or by foot.

A UK government study found that with the right policies, emissions from road transport could be reduced by 60 per cent from 1990 levels by 2030. Some of these savings depend on using hybrid vehicles and alternative fuels, but measures such as road pricing, energy-efficient driving and changes to freight distribution systems also had a role to play.