IMPROVING THE ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE OF UNIVERSITY LABORATORIES IN BRITAIN

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IMPROVING THE ENVIRONMENTAL PERFORMANCE OF
UNIVERSITY LABORATORIES IN BRITAIN

• Professor Peter James, Co-Director,Higher
  Education Environmental Performance Improvement (
  HEEPI)
• Mike Dockery, Sui Generis
• www.heepi.org.uk www.labs21.org.uk

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THE HEEPI PROJECT

• Supporting bottom up environmental improvement
  initiatives thru- benchmarking, e.g.
  buildings- best practice cases and events-
  award scheme
• LEED equivalent building assessment scheme for
  universities
• Greener IT in universities and colleges
• Sustainable laboratories

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THE UK/EUROPEAN CONTEXT

• Rising utilities costs (about 20 cents kwh)
• Tightening regulation- Command and control
  e.g. Building Code- Incentive based e.g.
  Carbon Commitment
• Stretching government targets- 80 carbon
  reduction 1990-2050- zero carbon buildings
  (Welsh labs by 2012)
• Stakeholder pressures- UK university carbon
  reduction target- Green League Table of
  universities

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LAB SPECIFIC PRESSURES

• New European risk based fume hood standard, EN
• Energy Display Certificates- annual publication
  of energy data- X-annual auditing, including
  right sizing of HVAC loads
• Carbon Reduction Commitment- audit and market
  like regime- 600,000 at one mid sized UK
  university

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BENCHMARKS (kwh per meter squared) (1 m2 10.76
ft²)
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LAB PERFORMANCE- 2006 prices, hypothetical 7000m2
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UNECESSARILY HIGH?

• Lack of understanding about key issues amongst
  designers and contractors
• Lack of integration and optimisation of building
  services
• Multiplication of safety margins
• Absence of effective whole-life costing
• Lack of involvement of facilities staff and
  building users in design
• Wrong assumptions acceptance of nameplate
  data limited use profiling

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HEEPI LEARNING

• Continuity and capacity are crucial
• Go with the grain of sector priorities- costs,
  risk, reputation, transparency
• Best practice is great- but any practice is OK
• Benchlearning not benchmarking