Spend to save thinking

Richard Simmons, chief executive of CABE, argues that government should be taking the lead on climate change.

We all need to take action to combat climate change - as individuals, industry, local authorities and government. But research shows that people believe that it is government that should be taking the lead.

The public sector spends over £150 billion on procurement each year and expenditure across the government estate stands at around £13 billion. There is huge potential for government to lead by example - but also a real risk that the opportunity to ensure that investment in the built environment leads to genuinely sustainable development will be missed if more attention is not paid to public building.

Greener homes are rightly a high priority. The Code for Sustainable Homes sets zero-carbon targets for all new homes and the recent Housing Green Paper - Homes for the future: more affordable, more sustainable - puts forward plans for three million homes by 2020, including homes with high environmental standards.

Carbon emissions from existing homes are, however, far greater than those from all planned new homes put together. New building accounts for less than one per cent of total housing stock a year, and two thirds of the current housing stock will still exist in 2050. We therefore need to set clear targets and milestones for comprehensive sustainable refurbishment and adaptation of existing homes.

But most of the average individual's carbon emissions comes not from their home but from the construction and use of shared infrastructure and services - such as schools, hospitals, roads and airports - as well as production and transportation of food. Constructing and running public infrastructure are estimated to account for at least one third of all carbon emissions.

The energy performance of public buildings is critical to meeting government targets on carbon emissions. In March 2007 Housing Minister Yvette Cooper insisted that the public sector do its bit to cut carbon emissions: by April 2008 buildings such as museums, galleries, town halls and government buildings will have to display their energy ratings publicly.

Yet much more needs to done. The report by the National Audit Office (NAO) in April 2007 demonstrated just how much: the majority of government departments are failing to meet targets to make their new buildings and refurbishments sustainable. The target of carbon-neutral government offices by 2012 will remain well beyond reach unless there is a rapid turnaround.

And that will require rigorous implementation of the Office of Government Commerce's Common Minimum Standards for the procurement of built environments in the public sector which specify that all procurement must take into account the government's commitment to sustainable development . These standards are mandatory across central government but, importantly, government departments are also expected to ensure that they are adopted throughout the public sector, including local authorities, health trusts and police authorities. Effective implementation of the Common Minimum Standards - and a mechanism to monitor this - would be a significant advance.

The gaps between policy aspirations and what is actually built have to bridged. This will only happen if there is a fundamental shift in thinking about costs and values and, in particular, if whole-life value is given priority over initial capital costs. It will almost always cost more initially to achieve higher sustainability standards but public sector expenditure should be assessed on the basis of whole-life costs and benefits.

This 'spend to save' thinking is encapsulated in both the Common Minimum Standards and HM Treasury's Green Book. Environmental sustainability need not add to the cost of a project over its whole life - if it is fully integrated into the design process from the start, as Sir John Bourn, head of NAO, stressed: 'If sustainability is well handled, and addressed at the very beginning of construction projects, it can and should provide value for money in the long term.' This message needs to percolate down to decision-makers and funders throughout the public sector.

It was a message endorsed by the House of Commons Education and Skills Committee in August 2007 in its report Sustainable Schools: Are we building schools for the future? The Committee concluded that it makes sense to shoulder higher capital costs if over the whole life of a building it has the same or lower costs as a building that is not constructed with the principle of carbon reduction in mind.

This is especially significant. Schools represent 15 per cent of public sector carbon emissions, and a major element of capital expenditure on public building is the Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme. At a cost of £45 billion, every secondary school in England will be rebuilt or refurbished by 2020. If we can create 3,500 environmentally sustainable secondary schools, we will have come a long way.

CABE is playing an important role here. Its new schools design panel, funded by the Department for Children, Schools and Families, is ensuring that design quality remains consistently high for all BSF schools by helping local authorities to evaluate design quality and indicating how bidders could refine their proposals.

The panel assesses designs against 10 criteria - and one of these is having the right strategies for environmental sustainability in place. It will look at, for example, whether the design has been informed by environmental performance; whether natural light and ventilation has been maximised, and energy and waste minimised; whether passive solar design has influenced orientation and planning - and whether whole-life costs have been taken into account.

The first BSF school - Bristol Brunel Academy, designed by Wilkinson Eyre Architects - opened in September 2007. Natural light and ventilation have been used wherever possible, there is a biomass boiler, and 24 per cent of the materials incorporated into the building fabric were recycled. Monitoring and evaluation of the school as it is used will tell us how well it is performing.

And this is critical. It takes more than assessing designs on the drawing board to test sustainability credentials. For public buildings to play a far greater role in tackling climate change their actual performance has to be measured and understood. It is impossible to judge what progress is - or is not - being made if we do not know what the energy performance of a public building is.

Yvette Cooper acknowledged that those using and operating public buildings have little idea of their energy efficiency or how this can be improved. A point also made by the NAO which identified the failure to specify expected benefits, and undertake rigorous post-occupancy reviews to evaluate performance against them, as a barrier to progress towards more sustainable government buildings. Although post-occupancy assessment is mandatory under the Common Minimum Standards, it is rarely undertaken in practice.

Comprehensive post-completion and post-occupancy evaluations are the only way to drive the continuous improvement in the design, construction and management of public buildings that is needed to environmental sustainability targets.

The Education and Skills Committee has recommended post-occupancy reviews of every BSF school to assess what has worked well and what has caused difficulties, on procurement and construction issues and also on the design and conception of the school. What we learn from Bristol Brunel Academy, for example, and other BSF schools nearing completion, should be shared with local authorities and others involved in the next BSF waves.

This needs to happen systematically for all new public building, not just schools. Every building needs to be evaluated as it is being used - so that we fully understand whole-life value.

People expect the government to take a lead and set an example. And in many ways it is. In July 2007 the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR), together with the construction industry, issued the Strategy for Sustainable Construction for consultation. This will give greater recognition to design quality as integral to sustainable construction and increased use of sustainable materials. Adoption and delivery of the principles and targets in the strategy will be central to the industry's ability to meet the challenge of sustainable development and climate change.

The scale of the public building programme and its impact on climate change are compelling enough reasons to attain the highest standards of sustainability. But these are also the buildings that we use every day - so they should be setting an example and sending out the clearest signal of the direction we should all be going in.