UK energy rules leave managers cold

In line with the EU’s Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, UK regulations require a whole-building approach to calculate office carbon emissions.

According to a survey of 50 firms in the South-East – including giants such as Glaxo SmithKline, Sun and Vodafone – the average space per person in offices has dropped from between 140 and 190 square feet to between 120 and 130.

These findings, published in M25 Office Market Demand, a research paper from property specialists Knight Frank and Ramidus, suggest it’s going to get pretty hot, as more computing power is concentrated in a smaller space.

Myself, I oppose the reduction of personal office space as much as I applaud the use of giant LEDs à la Times Square. But while New Labour’s Scrooge-like attitude to energy use may stop the indifferent architecture of our cities from ever being clothed in exciting displays, there is more trouble afoot.Meanwhile, energy-hungry LED screens are becoming more common on buildings. In Manhattan, street-level LED screens are being installed at the stairwells of subway stations: they will be linked as a single network, allowing immediate messaging updates across the city. And Samsung Electronics has run a giant billboard replica of a digital car stereo, with a time-of-day LED readout.

In line with the EU’s Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, UK regulations require a whole-building approach to calculate office carbon emissions. To comply, one downloads the free Simplified Building Energy Model (SBEM) from the web. Developed by the Building ResearchEstablishment for the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG), the SBEM computes monthly energy demand and CO2 emissions from a building’s geometry, construction and use, as well as from its heating, ventilation, air conditioning and lighting.

So what’s wrong with that? A lot, apparently. Bugs in the SBEM are legion. In particular, it designates glassy, hothouse offices as compliant, but denies such status to those using “fancoil” air conditioning – based on fans driving air over coils of cold water. The confusion is now so great that the Construction Products Association has written to the DCLG with a warning. Its beef: for new buildings that cost less than £20m and so tend to rely on the free SBEM package, delays are mounting, and if the software isn’t fixed by the end of September, many of these buildings will be late.

Well, maybe we don’t need new offices, because we can all work cheek-by-jowl in old ones. Certainly that appears to be the attitude of the DCLG, which has refused to provide new money to fix the SBEM. But in my book, we need fewer building regulations, and more office space, more air conditioning – and more new, efficient power stations, too.