Toolkit for Carbon Neutral Developments

The objective of the Toolkit for Carbon Neutral Developments project is to produce and disseminate information showing data, including financial data, on how the construction industry can build desirable buildings that produce zero net carbon emissions and minimise environmental impact whilst yielding a respectable financial return on investment. The information is based on achievements at BedZED.

BedZED has achieved unprecedented environmental savings. There is widespread intention in the construction industry to produce more sustainable buildings but such buildings rarely come about because of the cost premium usually associated with design strategies. The ZED project has developed ways to achieve sustainable buildings without necessarily reducing profitability.
The project consists of seminars, exhibitions and two reports: The Construction Materials Report and the Carbon Neutral Toolkit.

Construction Materials Report
The first part of the project to be produced was the BedZED Construction Materials Report published in December 2002 alongside a supporting seminar.

To put the need for the report in perspective – construction materials are over half of our resource use by weight and account for 30% of all road freight in the UK. The environmental impacts of extracting, processing and transporting these materials and then dealing with their waste are major contributors to greenhouse gas emissions, toxic emissions, habitat destruction and resource depletion.

The report describes the choices of construction materials made at BedZED. It quantifies the environmental benefits of these choices, using BRE's environmental profiling methodology. The report also describes how the materials were sourced, specified and used and provides case studies for individual materials and cost comparisons with alternatives.

The information is suitable for anyone who is involved in construction from architects to council planners, volume house builders to one-off
self-build projects.

The report was funded by Biffaward, a multi-million pound environment fund which utilises landfill tax credits donated by Biffa Waste Services. Data from this project has been fed into a national mass balance study of the flow of materials around the UK, funded by Biffaward, and it informed an eco-footprinting analysis, funded by WWF International.

Martin Bettington, Chairman of Biffaward, said:
"The report will promote widespread use of reclaimed materials in mainstream construction by producing and disseminating information on the materials and methods used at BedZED, which has derived around 10 per cent of its construction materials from waste, including timber, structural steel, doors, kerbstones, paving and aggregate. This is an important project that will make a considerable impact on reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill, Biffaward is pleased to have been involved."

A 13 page extract from the report can be viewed by following this link view report

The full report can be purchased from the BioRegional on-line shop or by calling 020 8404 4880.

An exhibition has been produced from the content of this report and has been exhibited at venues such as Construction Resources, The Bath Environment Centre, the Building Research Establishment, and the Centre for Alternative Technology. If you are interested in housing this free exhibition please contact:
Jennie Organ
e. jennieorgan@bioregional.com
t.020 8404 4881

Toolkit for Carbon Neutral Developments
This is the second report in the series, published in October 2003.

This report is a practical guide to producing carbon neutral developments and how to afford them. Based on the achievements at BedZED it describes all the measures taken on the scheme to reduce environmental impact during occupation. It includes technical descriptions, monitoring results, and financial mechanisms that have allowed the innovations at BedZED to become a reality.

The report also links with the more recent ‘ZED in a box’ design which represents the next generation of the ZED design and development process incorporating further improvements since BedZED.

In producing BedZED and developing ‘ZED in a box’ the ZED team has acquired a vast bank of knowledge and practical experience in producing carbon neutral developments. This report is designed to encapsulate that knowledge and to encourage take up of these principles in other housing developments.

The project has been funded by the DTI’s Partners in Innovation programme (PII) - a collaborative scheme which provides up to half the costs of research and innovation (R&I) projects within the construction sector.

Last updated 14th January 2008