Carbon Expert of the Month, December 2020

RICHARD BOWMAN

Richard is an energy consultant at Mesh Energy with extensive building performance modelling expertise which he applies in his role offering advice on low carbon building design.

Which projects and achievements are you most proud of?

A project I am currently involved in is Hope Street. Hope Street is a pioneering project set up by the charity One Small Thing providing a positive residential environment for justice involving women. The vision of the client is to reflect their values within the build, so the materials chosen needed to be natural, filled with character and interest; and be considerate of the environment.

How does One Click LCA help you achieve your sustainability goals?

Using One Click LCA from concept design through to the technical design along with the IES modelling has helped to generate a 93% carbon saving which is fantastic and really shows what work can be done with an exemplary vision and the right tools. Hope Street will be BREEAM excellent and I am proud to be a part of the team for such an aspirational project.

With more involved strategic thinking at pre-planning stage, we can undertake a lot of optioneering; targeting specific U values and looking at various wall constructions which meet the criteria whilst trying to reduce the embodied carbon.

Once we have simulated the building in IES and run One Click LCA we can use the outputs to discuss any tweaks in the design and this iterative process leads to the best outcomes for the project in terms of sustainable design.

LCA One Click’s ease of use really comes into play at this stage, importing the bill of quantities from IES and duplicating the model enables me to run various scenarios with different materials to explore the design options.

We have helped projects comfortably hit the RIBA 2025 targets for carbon reduction with the 2030 targets also within reach for those clients who are really aiming for excellence.

How do you usually make the business case for low-carbon design?

Constructing a more sustainable building does not have an overtly significant impact on the capital cost of a project, and the beauty of low carbon design is that running costs are considerably reduced over the lifespan of the building.

Personally, I think embodied carbon performance will become a primary concern for the construction industry this coming year. We have the materials and technology to build high performing buildings but the ecological cost of doing this is becoming higher and higher.

I am pleased to see that the professional institutions in building design are now aligning their policies, singing from the same hymn sheet and clients are becoming more switched on to this too. Luckily, the majority of our clients are forward thinking, and they come to us as they want to take a holistic approach with their design and create considerate sustainable buildings.

What’s your message for others working on low-carbon design?

As designers we know we can help create better buildings, but the challenge is for everyone to embrace a change in mindset to succeed. If we think we can do this by carrying on as usual it will never happen, so to make the leap and hit the 2030 targets, we need a shift in thinking. Change is happening and I am excited to be a part of it.