Process engineering and Design to Value, Built Environment Matters podcast with John Dyson, Professor of Human Enterprise at the University of Birmingham

'I am enjoying how the industry is changing and becoming more diverse in general.

The production of WLCA is required by BREEAM and the GLA.In a BREEAM NC 2018 assessment, it is possible to achieve up to 7 credits by doing a WLCA, so for developments that aspire to Excellent or Outstanding ratings the analysis of embodied carbon has become very important.

Process engineering and Design to Value, Built Environment Matters podcast with John Dyson, Professor of Human Enterprise at the University of Birmingham

The GLA requires the preparation of a WLCA pre-planning and at post-construction and requires the analysis of the results both with the current carbon factors and a decarbonised scenario.. Additionally, bodies such as the London Energy Transformation Initiative (LETI), RIBA, GLA and UKGBC, have developed guidance documents on embodied carbon, which include specific targets and roadmaps to zero carbon prior 2050.Whilst these four bodies have been essential in pushing the agenda for low carbon, there has been some confusion across the industry due to the misalignment of targets and WLCA scopes between them as demonstrated in Figure 3.LETI has been working in collaboration with other bodies and industry groups to resolve these inconsistencies and have published the ‘Embodied carbon target alignment document’.. Based on this document and the comparison of the current targets defined by LETI, RIBA and GLA, an average performance for non-domestic commercial building performance (A-C) would be to achieve an embodied carbon around 1400kgCO.

Process engineering and Design to Value, Built Environment Matters podcast with John Dyson, Professor of Human Enterprise at the University of Birmingham

/m², good practice would be below 970kgCO.and best practice below 550kgCO.

Process engineering and Design to Value, Built Environment Matters podcast with John Dyson, Professor of Human Enterprise at the University of Birmingham

This lower threshold is only achievable by refurbished buildings and timber structures that account for carbon sequestration and design with ambitious low carbon specifications.. Bryden Wood aspires to design new buildings that achieve at least the good practice thresholds shown in Figure 4 and where feasible deliver best practice performance.

In order to be able to meet these aspirations, it is necessary to develop a clear strategy for both embodied and operational carbon..The seismic conditions in particular are very important, as they have a major impact on the design of the safety systems and therefore increase the complexity of the design.

Existing power stations also vary in capacity, and the various nuclear reactor technologies are also different from each other..The strategy for achieving the required level of standardisation is to isolate variability.

Six standardised seismic isolation solutions can deal with most of the seismic conditions we will encounter.A standardised, customisable heat transfer system allows the new nuclear systems to plug in to the existing coal plant infrastructure.