BG10: The Common Carbon Metric
March 17, 2010 at the Bahia, Intercontinental Manila
Mr. Townsend, Director of BREEAM, discussed about the carbon metric system and procedures on how to create a rating tool for the Philippine Green Building Council. He pointed out some of the key factors that could help Philippines with their need for Green Development. He also commended the fact that Philippines is very much into Green Development and that their enthusiasm can be seen. The enthusiasm that Filipinos are showcasing is something that will drive change, and it is going to put Philippines in a very good position in the years to come.
What are the important elements of what we need to do?
"Make sure that the exchanging of information is constant because buildings, by nature, are international, and with this, they change in terms of the culture. Make sure that we develop understanding abilities because as we build international knowledge, we build professional knowledge. Professional knowledge is important because professionals understand how to change the technologies and change the skills. It is significant that if we are to create tools for assessing buildings, we also need to consider how we refurbish them and, lastly, we need to be clearer in terms of the benefits."
How do I know where best practice is?
"Performance and best practice is different in countries. Some countries driven by environmental issues like Australia, having low rain fall, are innovating their designs in terms of water efficiency because they have less of it and in Europe, where carbon count is increasing, is now constructing buildings that are zero carbon. We need to put some science behind that to pump it in the right direction."
"Our awareness in terms of sustainability, our changing environment, and the social, economic and environmental issues helps in determining a recipe for our success. To make change happen, I think there are more actors on-stage that we need to bring together. It is obvious that education and awareness is important, but we need to build capacity, we need to make sure we have the right skills."
"There’s no point bringing technology for long distances if there’s opportunity, economic opportunity, to reproduce them locally."
"Economic success can actually rise from generating green buildings. We need to make sure we encourage people. Sometimes the only way people are encouraged to change is through physical measures. The point intended to be reinforced, which is important, is to go back to the debate about sustainability and its economic success. Taking into consideration the idea, the debate, in much significance, deals in collaboration, sharing knowledge, sharing ideas."
SPEAKER PROFILE
Martin Townsend, Director, Building Research Establishment - Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM)
He has a diverse professional background ranging from advising UK Ministers, as a Regulator in his time at the Environment agency, to working on many construction sites. Martin joined BRE (Global) as Director of BREEAM in 2008 to drive BREEAM forward not just in the UK market, but also internationally.
Martin works closely with the construction industry bringing sustainability issues alive for companies' right across Social, Economic and Environmental agenda
Martin has set himself the challenge as Director to:
- Accelerate and broaden the uptake of BREEAM tools throughout the industry;
- Make BREEAM tools increasingly more challenging as fast as the market will bear
- Focus BREEAM development on market priorities and respond quickly and appropriately to market feedback;
- Encourage and learn innovation in the UK and internationally
- Capture and benchmark best practise and disseminate that learning
- Ensure BREEAM tools are developed and managed in an open and transparent way;
Martin offers both a UK and an international perspective on construction. Martin has addressed and briefed Ministers of State and several other major fora on the environment and sustainable construction in particular.
