20
Mar
2011
Chasing a made up number’s source…
A while ago I wrote about the magical 45% number that is cited whenever anyone tries to justify their involvement in a built-environment project that seeks to reduce CO2 emissions.
In the last few months I’ve made a few steps in finding the source of this number, and it seems that it might pay to be a bit more careful while using it in future. (Seems – I’d like to know if anyone knows better.)
The most likely source of the number comes from CIBSE guide F. (Thanks Sophie for finding it, I know I’ve been a terrible bore about this subject.)
| domestic | Commercial & Public | Industrial |
| 29% | 13% | 4% |
all adds up to 46% - eureka! It has been found! Lets just cross our Ts and dot our Is to be sure.
This table comes from the ‘Digest of UK energy statistics (London: The Stationery Office)’, and was published in 2000. There are a couple of tricky things here, one glaring, and one that takes a bit of digging. Firstly, 2000 was 11 years ago, and the odds are that the data are even older. 12 years ago I looked like this! These data are published annually and a lot happens in 12 years – is it still a valid number to be quoting? I had a look, and the stationary office doesn’t publish that data any more, it is the the Department of Energy and Climate Change‘s thing.
The places that I’ve been most successful in finding useful information are:
- Eurostat:Using official statistics to calculate greenhouse gas emissions: A statistical guide html version, pdf.
- Department of Energy in the US
If there is an up to date figure then I’d love to see it, it’d make me feel like much less of a fraud when I try to convince people about this kind of thing.
10
Apr
2010
UK emissions attributable to the built environment?
I’m trying to write about how much the built environment contributes to UK CO2 emissions, and i’m finding it to be very murky.
There is a figure of about 47 to 50%-ish but nobody references where they got this from, and nobody then subdivides it to show what that is made up of.
I’m on the bus at the moment, so i don’t really have access to the figures, but agriculture gets a big chunk, as does electricity generation, cement manufacturing gets a chunk, and transport gets a bit, and then the rest is left to ‘the built environment’.
As far as I can tell, if it has a roof, it is built environment. This means that that 50% that gets attributed to “something that architects really should be doing something about” includes everything from all the computers in offices around the country, to aluminium smelters (which consume so much electricity that they often have their own power station!).
What I’m after is the percentage of UK CO2 emissions that are attributable to buildings, broken down into useful chunks. How much power does the building consume? To run the lifts, the HVAC, the lights?
There are a lot of grey areas here, like how much architects should get involved with specifying the IT infrastructure, so that it produces less heat, and therefore allows a reduction in cooling loads, but for the moment I just want simple numbers.
Does anyone have anything they can push my way? There’s a pint/mars bar in it for you!!