Abstract
Current approaches to the design and planning of new housing developments in the UK do not sufficiently contribute to the necessary carbon emission reductions that will be required to meet UK Government targets and to avoid dangerous climate change. A tool (the Climate Challenge Tool) has been developed, which allows house builders to calculate whole life carbon equivalent emissions and costs of various carbon and energy reduction options for new developments. These cover technical and soft measures; energy used within the home, energy embodied in the building materials and emissions from transport, food and waste treatment. The tool has been used to assess the potential of various carbon reduction options for a proposed new housing development in Cambridgeshire. It was found that carbon reductions can be achieved at much lower costs through an approach which enables sustainable lifestyles rather than one which purely focuses on reducing heat lost through the fabric of the building and improving the heating and lighting systems. Furthermore a triple-bottom line analysis shows additional social and economic benefits from many of the measures.
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© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Broer, S., Titheridge, H. (2011). Enabling Low Carbon Living in New Housing Developments – A Triple Bottom Line Analysis. In: Howlett, R.J., Jain, L.C., Lee, S.H. (eds) Sustainability in Energy and Buildings. Smart Innovation, Systems and Technologies, vol 7. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17387-5_20
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17387-5_20
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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