I have just returned from a cradle-to-cradle conference at the University of Cambridge. In common with a lot of the people attending, I had heard the phrase and filed it in a mental box with other “cradle-to-something” phrases from the vocabulary of environmental impact assessments. Cradle-to-factory gate, cradle-to-site, cradle-to-grave are all a part of the [...]
This “greenest government ever” has been letting out hints that “zero carbon homes” might mean something quite different by the time 2016 comes around. Already “allowable solutions” have been floated, meaning that not all of the carbon reductions need to come from on site. The number floated by the Zero Carbon Hub was 70% of [...]
The post the other day about Local Authorities and renewable energy targets got me thinking about the EU renewable energy target (15% of energy to come from renewable sources by 2020) and how that compares with a mandated onsite renewable energy target à la Merton Rule. The difficulty with mandating a renewable energy target is [...]
SAP 2009, the government’s way of assessing compliance with Part L of Building Regulations, is to be introduced in October 1st of this year. Many of the changes in there are welcome. I’m particularly glad to see “confidence factors” for untested thermal bridging calculations which I had expected to be lobbied against hard. However as [...]
NI185: All of England NI185: Rural vs Urban Important edit: It has been pointed out to me by a little birdie that some of the Boroughs have submitted less-than-complete NI185 reports in anticipation of having to do the same work all over again for the Carbon Reduction Commitment. This means that major outliers should be [...]
We were talking in the office recently about the confusing mass of renewable energy targets set by local authorities inspired by the Merton Rule. These targets seem to be on the way out now, to be replaced with targets set using the Code for Sustainable Homes methodology. However there must be hundreds if not thousands [...]
Uptake The Merton Rule was a great creation. An idea ahead of its time. The original idea was to require developers to provide 10% of the energy required on their site from renewable sources. Say what you like about prescriptive targets but they are easy to understand (in principle if not always in practice). This [...]
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