Operational versus designed performance of low carbon schools in England: Bridging a credibility gap

Abstract

In the UK, schools alone are responsible for 15% of the energy consumption in public and commercial buildings. The recent studies showed that newly built schools are failing to meet even basic performance criteria related to both energy consumption and provision of indoor environmental quality (acoustics, indoor air quality, thermal comfort, and lighting). The main objectives of this article are three-fold: (a) to review the results of three major studies related to operational performance of newly built schools in England, (b) to identify major issues of importance for energy efficient provision of indoor environmental quality in school buildings based on results of a comprehensive survey of 286 UK building professionals, and (c) to estimate the influence of uncertainty of some design parameters on energy consumption using differential sensitivity analysis. The article concludes that our current ongoing efforts to deliver low carbon school buildings conducive to learning have had little success due to a poor understanding of how to design, engineer, and facilitate learning spaces for changing pedagogical practices to support a mass education system. Major identified issues refer to aspects of policy, design, and commisioning that affects building performance.