Low Carbon Performance Awards, Results, Sustainable Building Prize News, Reducing Emissions

Low Carbon Performance Awards – Architecture

Winners from 2007, London, England, UK

11 Feb 2008

Low Carbon Performance Award

Rachel Kerlir, a member of the sustainability team in BDP’s London office, was First Runner Up in the Carbon Champions category of the Low Carbon Performance Awards launched by the Chartered Institution of Building Services Engineers (CIBSE), in association with leading energy company E.ON.

Presented by yachtswoman Dame Ellen MacArthur at a ceremony in London on 6 February (2008), the awards were set up to honour projects, buildings and professionals that have worked towards reducing carbon emissions. The award scheme was designed to celebrate the achievements of the 700 participating companies of the ‘100 Days of Carbon Clean Up’ campaign in delivering carbon savings in the building services sector. The event was also aimed at highlighting such successes to the public.

BDP played an active role in this initiative through the 100 Days challenge, led by Rachel Kerlir, who took responsibility for running the initiative within the workplace and ensuring that all 100 days communications were passed on.

The challenge required BDP to monitor its energy consumption in the London office over a period of 100 days and to measure the impacts of its energy efficiency measures. The overall energy reduction was 10%, with 40% savings during evenings and weekends.

During this period, Rachel worked closely with facilities manager Paul Hobbs and sustainability representatives from around the office to help drive down energy consumption in the workplace.

Amongst the simple but highly effective measures Rachel instigated were:

– analysing energy consumption, use and habits sending regular email circulars to staff and devising poster campaigns to remind them of saving tips such as switching off lights and equipment, reusing paper cups, etc.
– together with the facilities manager, installing timers on the fan coil units
– organising a waste paper campaign – where scrap paper was collected from around the office and made into 250 notebooks for staff members
– holding discussions with security guards and the catering manager to find other ways of lowering consumption and leading to recommendations for buying greener products instigating a regular meter readings rota

Rachel said: I was very pleased to attend this ceremony with Paul Hobbs but the award came as a complete surprise. We just began this internal work together and we have planned a lot of projects for 2008! Next year, we are planning a multi-site campaign involving all BDP offices. Indeed, this campaign is a step towards reaching our BDP global targets of 10% energy savings in 2009 and 20% savings in 2011 (based on 2007). This award is recognition for all the people who took part and allowed us to make the carbon savings we did”.

Location: UK

Low Carbon Building Awards

Entries Now Open for Low Carbon Building Awards
The Carbon Trust Scotland, in conjunction with Urban Realm, is now ready to receive entries for the fifth Carbon Trust Low Carbon Building Award, which this year comprises two categories: new build and refurbishment.

The Carbon Trust Low Carbon Building Award has been specifically designed to acknowledge and applaud the success of organisations in Scotland in designing and building low carbon buildings. The judges will therefore be looking for new and refurbished buildings that not only embody low carbon design principles, but also deliver reduced energy demand and emissions, sustainability and a high quality of occupant experience.

Low Carbon Building Awards

Sustainable Buildings Research Centre, University of Wollongong, Australia – engineered by Cundall:

photo © Richard Glover / Matt Estherby