Abstract
ABSTRACTNon-domestic buildings have great potential for energy-related emission reductions in response to climate change. However, high-specification office buildings in the UK demonstrate that regulation, assessment and certification (‘standards’) have not incentivized the development of lower-energy office buildings as expected. Making use of the concepts of ‘qualculation’ and ‘calculative agency’, qualitative case studies of 10 speculatively developed office buildings in London, UK, provide new insight into why this is the case. Interview data (n = 57) are used to illustrate how ‘market standards’ substitute for user needs, and ratchet up the provision of building services to maximize marketability competitively. The examples of energy modelling and the market’s (mis)use of British Council for Offices guidelines are used to explain how such standards perversely bolster energy-demanding levels of specification and building services, and militate against lower-energy design, in the sector researched. The potentials for alternative, performance-based standards and new industry norms of quality are discussed. It is concluded that at least the London speculative office market by its very constitution and operation, including the reliance on standards, continues to create increasingly energy-demanding buildings.
Highlights
In the context of the UK’s Climate Change Act 2008 commitment to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 80% from a 1990 baseline by 2050 (HM Government, 2008), the decarbonisation of all sectors of the economy and society is a pressing task
Energy use in buildings is estimated to account for 42% (Skea, 2012), with commercial sector buildings responsible for 8% (Committee on Climate Change, 2016), of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions
Together their use standardises office designs, enabling the comparison of buildings as products in a market. This is the case in speculative development, where standards are classically used to provide for unknown users, just as they enable markets to operate by providing standard and homogeneous commodities (Carruthers & Stinchcombe, 1999; Timmermans & Epstein, 2010). Given that several such ‘standards’ were intended to put a ceiling on energy-intensive quality specifications (British Council for Offices guidance: BCO), energy waste (Energy Performance Certificates: energy performance (EPC)) and unsustainability and carbon emissions (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method: BREEAM), this paper considers how it is that such ‘standards’ do not deliver low energy office buildings
Summary
In the context of the UK’s Climate Change Act 2008 commitment to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 80% from a 1990 baseline by 2050 (HM Government, 2008), the decarbonisation of all sectors of the economy and society is a pressing task. Energy use in buildings is estimated to account for 42% (Skea, 2012), with commercial sector buildings responsible for 8% (Committee on Climate Change, 2016), of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions. Commercial office space is estimated to be growing twice as fast as other non-domestic sectors (Green Construction Board, 2013), and its energy use and emissions are especially significant. In the commercial office sector, attention has been drawn to the ‘unnecessarily’ high energy demands (compared to known alternatives) and environmental impacts, of offices built to what is described as an institutional specification (Guy, 1998), investment quality (Guertler, Pett, & Kaplan, 2005), or more over-specification (Pinder, Schmidt, & Saker, 2013; Van de Wetering & Wyatt, 2011; Wade, Pett, & Ramsay, 2003). This misguided attempt at designing in redundancy ... resulted in more expensive and more energy intensive office buildings” (Pinder et al, 2013, p. 442; see Guy, 1998, pp. 268-271)
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