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Green Building BEAM consultant
John Herbert
BEAM Professional
by John Herbert
Kelcroft is green building consultant based in Hong Kong. It easy to imagine the perfect
green building, actually building it can be a lot more difficult. Every decision has
an impact on the wallet and the world around you. That's why making wise choices is
important from day one.
Want to discuss buildings or green building? call John Herbert 2335 9830 today!
How create a plan for building green:
Index
Labels
Strategy
Planning
Envelope
Envelope - Wall/Glass
Envelope - Roof
Envelope - Airtightness
Envelope - Materials
Embodied Energy
Energy Modelling
Lighting Simulation
Light Pollution
New Buildings
Existing Buildings
Offices
Industrial/Manufacturing
Leisure
Data Center
Innovation
Labelling
We all need and use shortcuts everyday, the
household goods we buy, or tinned goods we pick
up every time we shop, we use labels as shortcuts.
We might use the excuse of limited time, who has time to
read every product label? Or perhaps lack the expertise to investigate
every possible detail? We learn to trust certain labels as an everyday
shortcut, so we can get on with our daily life.
BEAM PLUS is a green building label, it is independent credential,
for developers it is especially useful marketing tool to attract
and retain high value buyers and tenants.
Often international companies will only sign a lease in a green
building, increasing the demand for a green building label.
The Green Building sector has developed over the last twenty
years, often including BEAM as a specification requirement.
We also know that around two thirds (66%) of people would rather deal
with a environmentally sympathetic organisations, driving customer demand
for high quality green buildings, the label helps the consumer, avoiding
the tedious examination, the label is a shortcut that demonstrates
it is a green building.
Our role is to meet those needs of your customers, need to chat about
green building? call John Herbert 2335 9830 today!
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Strategy
Building sustainable has to be carefully considered, commercial and
residential buildings are in focus because the energy consumption both
in construction, and more particularly operation is directly linked
with the production of greenhouse gases and carbon.
Strategy is formulated by exclusion, draw a circle, everything
outside the circle will be ignored, to make your map. For example,
for a commercial building, credits related to residential would be
excluded. This will focus attention on the key issue. The strategy
can be created and review through the design charrette.
Kelcroft helps improve your environmental score card, using tried
and test techniques, call us today telephone +(852) 2335 9830
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Planning
The strategy is the overview that allows you work out the project limits,
to focus attention on the issues and innovations for the development. This
avoids wasting time examining the wrong issues, that opens the door to
start planning the project.
Planning a green building project is complex, and challenging issue. And planning
needs to start before the architect issues their vision, because rolling back
the scheme becomes an uphill battle.
Planning needs to consider the future, we already know that Hong Kong is a largely a
service economy, as a result buildings consume about ninety percent (90%) of all
electricity generated, that equates to sixty five percent (65%) of the Hong Kong's
GHG emissions, so the data puts a bullseye on buildings. Because today's new building
will be tomorrow's existing building, planning has to recognize the buildings will be
targetted.
Having
a BEAM Professional on the design team earns one credit point under the BEAM assessment system.
Want to discuss green building? call John Herbert +852 2335 9830 today!
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Building Envelope
Understand that once the building envelope is "approved" it is
difficult to rollback, and that effectively bakes in the
energy costs for the next 60 years!
It is a critical step because it simultaneously determines the
embodied energy, the energy used constructing the building,
and controls the options for recycling the envelope materials
at the end of service life.
Forget about the framework of the rating tool and scorecards, first
examine every element of the building envelope, as a whole package,
including the major elements for the wall, window/glass, and roof.
Remember that looking forward buildings will be the no. 1 target, therefore
optimising the building envelope is a critical future-proofing move.
carefully examine the options for walls and glass
Want to discuss green building? call John Herbert +852 2335 9830 today!
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Envelope - Wall and Glass
For air conditioned buildings the lowest possible WWR is best period.
the lowest WWR means lower air leakage, lower heat gain, and lower
construction cost. increasing the area of glass increases the heat
gain, optimizing the WWR impacts the energy cost on day one and for the
next 60 years!
Optimise the type of glass selected, better glazing lowers the
demand (heating / cooling load) , the HVACR equipment capacity
is reduced, and therefore the operating costs are reduced for the
service life of the building!
Want to discuss green building? call John Herbert +852 2335 9830 today!
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Envelope - Roof
The roof is often overlooked part of the building envelope. Consider the floor area
to roof area ratio, if the building has 1:1 ratio that increases the roof heat
gain/heat losses, so design to exceed the minimum OTTV requirement.
For air conditioned space a reflective white roof is a "green" solution. It is far
more effective, reducing solar heat gain, lowering air conditioning running costs
than a green lawn reflective white
roof calculation
It is best value, in terms of ROI, choose a reflective white finish
adds no extra cost to the project, and will save energy for decades.
Above: Cool Reflective Roof
Whilst considering the roof, the materials must be carefully considered
at the same time. The roof construction impacts the embodied energy
used in the construction and how the materials can be recycled during
decommissioning. And that means considering all the factors, including
demolition at the design stage.
Only after the building envelope has been refined and optimized, then
packages for BEAM submission, for example SA8, detailing the roof
can be generated. In your notes for the contractor, provide
reminder to obtain laboratory report for the roofing materials purchased.
Want to discuss energy saving reflective roofing? call
John Herbert +852 2335 9830 today!
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Envelope - Airtightness
A leaky building will waste energy for 60 years if it is not
fixed, that is a high price to pay. For air conditioned buildings
summertime condensation and mould problems are commonplace.
There is no standard for air leakage in Hong Kong, optimise building
envelope air leakage by measuring the air tightness, otherwise it will
impact the energy costs for the next 60 years.
Need to chat about building envelope airtightness or air tightness
standards, call John Herbert +852 2335 9830 today!
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Materials
As discussed in the building envelope topic, the use of materials is a complex and important issue, these
three key issues need to be planned simultaneously:
- Embodied Energy/Embodied Carbon
The embodied energy/carbon of the material used in the construction and construction waste generated;
- Durability
Materials require maintenance, and materials that become unserviceable may require replacement or frequent replacement, during the life of the building;
- Decommissioning (DX)
Once the building material has reached the end of its service life list the means and methods for recycling or reuse;
Overall, it is quicker to start at the end, consider Decommissioning (DX) first.
Waste
The whole concept of 'waste' needs urgent reform, when money is the only
metric, companies are required to make financial decisions based on cost alone, but there
are alternatives for industry:
Presently there are too many material experts creating "new" materials
without any possible route for future use. As a solution to excess plastic,
materials are being created with plastics mixed, and forever bonded with
concrete, at the end of its life, it cant be recycled, it is kicking
the can down the road, take the long tern view, avoid those materials.
There are many possibilities, demanding more design, not less, to ensure the
building materials have low embodied energy and can be easily recycled
in the future.
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Embodied Energy
Embodied energy and embodied carbon are two sides of the same coin, because embodied
carbon is directly proportional to embodied energy.
I will use Embodied Energy (EE) it represents the energy spent during mining, processing,
production, and transport of materials to the job site. It is significant quantity,
World GBC report EE accounts for around 11% of the total carbon emissions (embodied
and operational). It also highlights the importance of the construction process,
materials damaged on site have to be replaced, causing double the amount of embodied
energy.
Materials that require frequent replacement during the life cycle
of the building, for example timber door sets, need more careful
consideration. Some components wear and need to be replaced during
operations, increasing the embodied energy and total energy used
in the building.
Smart designers realize that optimizing construction materials has early
benefits. read about managing
embodied energy.
To discuss embodied energy choices, call John
Herbert +852 2335 9830 today!
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Energy Modelling
Energy modelling is a simulation tool to estimate the annual energy use of
a building, and one of the most important factors is the composition of the
building envelope, that sets the demand load.
Buildings with more glass, have high WWR, and will use more energy than a
building with a smaller area of glass, because glass has higher energy
transmission rate than walls. Also glass is a primary source of poor sealing
and air leakage, so can decrease the airtightness of the building, further
increasing the annual energy use.
In addition to the building envelope, the type of Building Services
installation is also important, the efficiency of the conversion of
electricity into heating/cooling/fan power will impact the building
energy use for each operating hour.
To ensure the owner can monitor energy use, it is important to
provide energy meters to record the energy used for different
systems and components.
To discuss energy modelling, call John
Herbert +852 2335 9830 today!
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Lighting Simulation
Helping ensure that the lighting installation quality and energy use is optimum on paper at
the design stage, before construction commences, relies on modelling the performance of the
lighting and lighting fittings.
Above: Office Lighting Simulation
Above: Simulation visualisation interior lighting
We have helped architects, designers, engineers, developers, and building owners plan and
develop higher performance low energy demand buildings in a sustainable
way, that is what we do.
Want to discuss lighting, call John
Herbert +852 2335 9830 today!
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Lighting Pollution
Examine lighting pollution from the building facade and or landscape lighting
to minimise the environmental impact at design stage by simulation and
modelling the performance of the lighting and lighting fittings.
Learn more about lighting pollution here
Above: External facade lighting simulation
Above: Facade Lighting Visualisation
Above: Mid Floor lighting Simulation result
To discuss facade lighting issues for BEAM PLUS SA15, call John Herbert +852 2335 9830 today!
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BEAM PLUS New Building (NB) Projects
New Buildings represent a tiny fraction of the current building stock, but will be tomorrow's existing buildings.
The best approach for new buildings is to examine the influencing factors, environment impacts, and the
outcomes, including:
1) Strategy
- create strategy through exclusion, disregard irrelevant / impossible issues, target influencing factors;
2) Plan
- Follow the strategy creating your tactics to achieve the objectives. Remember that a minor
change may have big impacts, changing the WWR for one elevation may impact a string of interconnected
issues:
- quantity of wall and glass materials;
- embodied energy of the materials used, and perhaps construction waste;
- building envelope;
- indoor Air Quality;
- cooling load impacting the air conditioning plant
- lighting;
- overall annual energy use;
- decommissioning quantities of materials assigned to be recycling/reuse;
3) Envelope
- optimise the building envelope, refine the WWR and glazing to minimize operating costs and
energy consumption. then review embodied energy and target reductions
BEFORE the plans are approved, ensure that the package as
designed will be resilient;
4) Indoor Air Quality
- before MEP design starts, examine and optimise the factors that influence good air quality in the building, sufficient openable windows? and good mechanical ventilation where needed;
- comfort, including noise must be considered both indoor and externally;
5) Energy Use
- optimise all factors that influence the air conditioning running costs, review and refine the envelope, wall, glass, and lighting;
6) Water Use
- optimise the plumbing design to reduce water use, encouraging conservation, consider using rainwater for cleansing water purposes. And drainage system design (remember SARS).
7) Impacts
- Examine the whole package and optimise to reduce environmental impacts, examine the wider
environment, provision of landscaping, parks and play areas around the development;
8) Decommissioning (DX)
- At the design stage examine the processes involved to Decommissioning (DX) the building, optimising the chance
for separation for recycling or reuse of materials when the building has reached the end of its service life,
design from the offset with system building that can be dismantled.
This is not a single step process, it may require several iterations to refine the countless influencing factors
for creating a green building design, then allocate the features into the BEAM PLUS credit framework;
Want to discuss a new green building call John Herbert 2335 9830 today!
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Existing Building (EB) Projects
Existing buildings are already operating and should have a
track record to examine, the best approach for an existing buildings
is to examine the influencing factors, its impact, and the outcomes,
including:
1) Energy Use
- compared with existing utility bills, define plan to minimise energy consumption;
- conduct energy audit;
- optimise the key factors that are influencing the existing air conditioning running costs,
including behaviour, operations, controls, maintenance, glazing, and lighting;
2) IAQ
- optimise the factors that influence good quality IAQ in the building, sufficient operable
windows, and good mechanical ventilation where needed;
3) Environmental Impacts
- examine the environment impacts, including noise and other impacts;
Want to discuss existing buildings call John Herbert 2335 9830 today!
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The Greener Office
Green building rating tools have developed from certifying
whole buildings down to fitting-out and renovation projects for
corporate and individual offices.
BEAM PLUS Interiors (BI) is a rating tool for designing
healthy office accommodation. Customers are tired of greenwashing,
diesel buses are green? A BEAM certificate demonstrates your
environmental credentials to your staff and stakeholders.
A BEAM PLUS Interiors (BI) certificate provides real
evidence for your customers learn
more about Kelcroft's consulting service.
Creativity is an important asset, determining better solutions
within constraint is a necessary skill.
Want to discuss a greener office? call John Herbert 2335 9830 today!
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Industrial and Manufacturing Greening
Industrial and manufacturing sector face the same challenges
today.
Government's have a stricter attitude demanding
stronger environmental compliance, requiring lower carbon
emissions, lower water consumption, and reduced waste.
Factories need to be more sustainable from day one,
using materials sourced from renewable sources, or waste
reused as the raw material for the next process.
Energy usage and sustainability are two sides of the
same coin.
Ms. Gro Harlem Brundtland stated at MIECF that 'Energy' is
the most critical part of sustainability, and Kelcroft conducts
EMSD energy audits and REA energy
efficiency assessments.
Kelcroft is qualified Cleaner Production consultant that means
improving your business environmental score card, using tried
and test techniques.
To discuss greening industry call John Herbert 2335 9830 today!
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Leisure/Sports Centre
Green building provides high quality, more durable, efficient,
environmentally sensible buildings. Building green helps reduce excess and waste,
creating a sustainable, more efficient, high performance building. It could
also keep your business viable, as old inefficient plants are forced to close.
To chat about greener sport centers call our BEAM professional John Herbert 2335 9830 today!
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Data Centers
Green building provides high quality, more durable, efficient,
environmentally sensible buildings. Building green helps reduce excess and waste,
creating a sustainable, more efficient, high performance building. It could
also keep your business viable, as old inefficient plants are forced to close.
Want to discuss a greener data centers? call John Herbert 2335 9830 today!
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Innovation
Green Building benefits include lower operating costs, with
reduced environmental impact, and marketing a credible certificate
shows your customers your operating a green and environmental smart
business.
Green building benefits include:
Want to discuss sustainable green building, call the expert John Herbert on 2335 9830 today!