Targeting a low carbon estate

As senior engineer Thomas Briault explains, the model, developed to address the Climate Change Act’s 2050 carbon reduction targets, will even factor in such uncertain aspects as future economic growth.

The healthcare sector has huge potential to help reduce the nation’s carbon emissions while also saving money. Charged with accelerating the UK’s move towards a low-carbon economy, The Carbon Trust set out to analyse the best way for the UK to achieve a low carbon non-domestic building stock by 2050. This work, on which a final report will be released by the end of October, could be of considerable benefit to the National Health Service, and to the UK’s healthcare Trusts, in reducing costs, as well as achieving significant CO2 emission reductions. In 2008 the UK Government set the country’s carbon budgets up to the year 2022. Taking into account the latest climate change science, the Climate Change Act set a goal of an 80 per cent reduction in carbon emissions by 2050 to minimise the impact of climate change. The Government had many policy options at its disposal, from subsidising insulation to redefining how “zero carbon” can be achieved in the built environment. What it lacked, however, was a means of comparing the relative effectiveness of carbon reduction policy interventions. The Carbon Trust asked Arup to devise one. The result was DeCO2DE, a statistical model that shows how carbon savings accrue from different carbon-saving measures, the rate at which such measures can realistically be implemented, and the potential barriers – financial and practical – to their adoption. Developed in spreadsheet format using “Visual basic” programming language, the model’s sophistication lies in how the carbon-saving measures, implementation rates and barriers are linked, ultimately to output the soughtafter 80 per cent reduction in emissions.

Adaptation for the healthcare sector