Wren & Bell structural, civil and environmental consultants were awarded Partners in Technology funding in 1998 to undertake a sustainable housing development at Lower London Road in Edinburgh. This project builds on the expertise recognised by this award and extends the principles developed at Lower London Road and other sustainable developments into the commercial sector. In addition to the sustainable construction capability of Wren & Bell, the practice has also undertaken a number of industrial sustainability programmes, such as Glasgow Development Agency’s "Profit from Sustainability" Programme and the Scottish Borders Enterprise Eco-Industrial Project, where improvements to facilities management of a wide range of buildings were an integral part.

Agilent Technologies’s facilities management section has all the skills and experience that would be expected of a world-class company operating a large and diverse facility. This is illustrated by the wealth of detailed information generated by the section and the numerous successes they have had in the past in reducing the operational costs of their facilities. Some examples of recently reported data are included to demonstrate some of the efficiency improvements already achieved to date.

*these measures are currently being instigated and savings figures are projected.

Table 1: Estimated savings attributable to Energy saving projects over the past 6 years.

These and other measures have resulted in considerable savings in both financial and environmental costs for the company, as demonstrated by the following figures.

Figure 1: Utilities Cost / Floor Area, South Queensferry, 1988 - 1996

Figure 2: Electricity consumption at South Queensferry, 1993 - 1996

These few examples give a small taste of some of the wealth of information available from just one site. Together with the data collected at the Ipswich and Bristol sites, this performance and refurbishment information will form the foundation of the project.

The other two partners, RSP Mechanical & Electrical Engineers and Parr Partners Architects, have both worked for Agilent Technologies for several years, and in many cases they are responsible for the execution of refurbishment schemes, installation of systems and design of buildings at the South Queensferry site. This detailed knowledge of the structures and systems will prove invaluable in the assessment of the facilities and refurbishment schemes. The team will also be able to draw on the extensive professional knowledge of two prestigious practices and benefit from the insights that they will bring to development of the best practice guide. As this guide is intended for use by Facilities Managers, M&E Engineers and Architects, among others, this contribution will be invaluable for the successful uptake of the project.

The team has already undertaken an extensive series of meetings to clarify the contribution of each partner and management of the overall project. The majority of the work will be undertaken directly by Wren & Bell’s sustainable construction team, which will minimise any project management difficulties that might arise. Production of project reports and the best practice guide will be undertaken within Wren & Bell’s ISO9001 quality management system, ensuring consistent quality and punctuality. The project partners will effectively act as sub-contractors to the project manager for the purposes of submitting technical information and submission quality will be controlled through existing quality systems. With regard to the IT capability of the team, Wren & Bell currently have two web sites, both developed in-house. This capability will be assisted by Agilent Technologies’s own programming section, which routinely develops branded software for the world market.

Benefits

The main benefit which will arise from this project is a quantifiable improvement in the sustainability of commercial buildings, with an associated reduction in environmental pollution. Additional benefits include a measurement of the overall sustainability of the commercial building stock, with a user-friendly tool to suggest steps for its improvement.

The project will deliver:

This project is an initiative to address the issues of environmental degradation that result from the design and use of commercial buildings. It fills an existing gap in government energy-efficiency initiatives, the majority of which currently concentrate on domestic consumption.