Construction sustainability hubs

Craig Clark, NBS Technical placement, provides a personal view on a half dozen online sustainability hubs.

Since the 1970s, concern for the sustainability of our economy, society and natural environment has been growing across all industries. There are a number of online sustainability hubs, all offering an overview on this issue, but typically limited to a specific industry.

Six online construction sustainability hubs have been reviewed, with two main areas under scrutiny: their breadth and depth – the number of issues covered and the detail gone into – and their currency.

Breadth and depth

Hub content is typically aimed at one profession within the industry. A good example is the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) Sustainability Hub, which covers many sustainability issues associated with the construction industry but is written for architects in a design capacity. Content includes design strategies (including a pro forma for 'missing' strategies), case studies, videos and blogs. The Hub makes use of descriptive explanations of issues and includes appropriate illustrations and images. The case studies are particularly balanced, as the design process is visible. Whilst being informative for architects, it's of less use to other construction professionals, e.g. building services engineers.

The Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) Sustainability hub addresses issues in the same manner, except aimed more at surveyors. Content includes practice and research, RICS UK carbon footprint, RICS sustainability glossary 2010, Global balance (e-newsletter), BuildAction (on disaster management), the Ska rating for fitouts, and a blog. Other resources include news, internal links (e.g. to energy fact sheets) and press releases. The majority of a surveyor's work is produced in report format and is reflected in the hub content. The research reports, guidance papers and case studies strongly rely on text. Only presentation materials such as PowerPoints include some visual aids. The topics are covered at a detailed level and are written analytically.

The BRE Sustainability hub offers content much the same way, only this time aimed at a general technical audience. Hub content includes Communities, construction of buildings (including BREEAM), organizations, products and materials (including Green Guide Online), and waste. Case studies are included, e.g. for BRE Innovation Park.

While RICS and the BRE offer quite good insights into the theory of sustainability in construction, they distinctly lack information on the application of the issues. GreenSpec offers a good balance of content that ranges from design to building products and materials. That balance extends to the amount of complementary diagrams and images that accompany each article. Content includes green building products, about materials, featured products, building design, energy, lighting, water, resources (e.g. glossary, CPD), 'Greenwash', housing refurb and retrofit, GreenSpec Studio, and GreenSpec EPDs (Environmental product declarations). A nice feature is the extensive separate lists of building products and materials information, a feature found only in GreenSpec.

Uniquely, Building4Change is a news orientated hub. Content includes news, analysis, briefings, opinion, case studies and a free weekly newsletter. Under Analysis, the hub categorises its content as News in depth, Policy, Technical and Design. The depth of this hub is difficult to determine because of its format, being organized in chronological rather than topic order.

Sustainable Construction has nine topics under the heading Sustainability, and other content includes projects and links. Sustainability is discussed quite broadly on this site, from the history of the subject to design and construction. The depth of the content is quite useful from a technical point of view as values are included when analysing heat, light and energy. But certain products and materials you'd expect to find, such as solar hot water collectors and concrete alternatives, are not mentioned.

Currency

Like a library, any collection of online information will need updating periodically. Readers expect this. Curiously, only three of the hubs had dated their articles. The ones that have undated content give no immediate clue as to how recent the hub's information is. There are launch dates but no statement as to when content is refreshed. Including a date in each article (as NBS do) would be a useful start.

Because RIBA's hub is about architectural design, dating its material is only productive when legislation and scientific values (e.g. U-values) are mentioned, but some content of this type does not give dates. For example, its webpage on U-values states 'Current limiting U values [area weighted] in England and Wales are 0.35 W/m²K for walls and 0.25 W/m²K for roofs'. This suggests that the content is either talking about 2010 non-domestic buildings (part L2) or both domestic (L1) and non-domestic (L2) from 2006. Without a date somewhere on the page, or a clarification in the text, a visitor is unable to tell which one.

Professionally written reports always include a date. Accordingly, all of the RICS reports, guidance papers and presentations have dates and there are at least two published each year, so the content is reasonably current.

Referenced documents are constantly replaced or amended and an effective hub should reflect this. The BRE Sustainability hub is rich in references to British Standards and legislation in its dated content, primarily because they specialise in development of sustainable standards and guidance.

GreenSpec is another hub that does not give the age of its content. After reading its content on insulation materials, it seems reasonable to date it from 2010. The scant scientific values throughout its text on insulation do not specify an amount, except in an abstract illustration from the Architect's Journal. This indicates the thicknesses of different materials needed to achieve a U-value of 0.2 W/m²•k, a value required in the party walls and roofs of a domestic building to meet part L of the Building Regulations.

One that is most fresh (Building4Change) has news-based content, and dates its stories. The News is updated frequently, normally every day. The worst hub for establishing its currency is Sustainable Construction, where no dates are provided. A lot of content on its site looks useful but, because its age is unknown, the validity of its offerings is questionable.

The most troubling thing about some of the hubs is the lack of care and maintenance. It seems they have been put online with a set amount of content and have perhaps underestimated the amount of work involved in maintenance.

Conclusion

The subject is now such an important factor in everyday professional life that to be sustainable has become a professional responsibility.

NBS has its own Sustainability hub, with a lot of useful information. Content includes articles, videos, links, a glossary, recommended reading, a bibliography (with hyperlinks), organizations, BREEAM, Get Sust (a recent addition), and a newsletter. It is not as comprehensive as GreenSpec or RIBA's hub in describing specific sustainable design solutions and building products. What the hub does offer is a lot of of articles that give different perspectives of sustainability from the construction industry. The majority of the articles and documents are dated, as are the books the site links to.

With more new issues brought forward on a regular basis, the breadth of sustainability is ever increasing. Construction industry professionals are working cooperatively to make their methods more efficient and ultimately more sustainable.

The same can be said for computer aided design programmes used throughout the industry. With the emergence of building information modelling (BIM), different construction disciplines can use the same model to work on specific elements (e.g. structural engineers on its frame and architects on its envelope design). Could it be possible for the same to be achieved in generating and maintaining a single construction industry-wide sustainability hub?

I believe so, when time, effort and resources are less restricted in larger companies and organizations. But a more efficient and accurate hub would be one that is a collaborative investment, involving maintenance from a number of professionals ranging across disciplines and with different employers.

Related NBS information:

Articles:

• Benefits of superfast broadband
• Video: Cloud computing
• IT outsourcing for architects

Written November 2011

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