With a few exceptions, much of central government’s sprawling estate is somewhat long in the tooth. Buildings constructed generations ago are trying to keep pace with the demands of a large and modernising civil service, and while most are just about working from a functional point of view, in today’s carbon-aware age this is not enough.

“These buildings are sometimes hundreds of years old,” says John Alker, head of advocacy at the UK Green Building Council, a built environment lobbying body. “Some were originally built to have coal or log fires in their rooms, and they’re now being used in a completely different way; they’ve got a huge number of people and a huge amount of computer equipment, which gobbles up energy and produces a lot of heat. They’re not built with a low carbon footprint in mind.”

Partly because of its ageing estate, the government is struggling to meet its sustainability plans. In 2006, prime minister Tony Blair published a plan to green government business – the Sustainable Operations on the Government Estate Framework (SOGE) – which set a target to reduce CO2 emissions from government activities by 12 per cent on 1999 levels by 2011.

Last month, green watchdog the Sustainable Development Commission published a monitoring report on the SOGE targets. The report was positive on many fronts, noting that departments last year cut office emissions by 6.3 per cent. But the commission also warned that this is not enough and that, if it continues in this vein, the government will miss its 2011 target.

Nonetheless the Office for Government Commerce, which has responsibility for the government estate, insists that recently updated plans detailing how each department will meet the SOGE targets suggest the 2011 goal will in fact be reached – even surpassed. Yet looking at individual government buildings, it’s clear there is a mountain to climb.

Since last autumn, all public buildings have been obliged to display something called a Display Energy Certificate (DEC): a document that rates them on their energy efficiency. These have revealed that almost one third of government buildings have the lowest possible ‘G’ rating for energy efficiency – amongst their number the Whitehall Place headquarters of the Department for Energy and Climate Change (DECC).

The onus is therefore on departments to put in place plans to upgrade or refurbish their buildings, in a bid to cut CO2 emissions. Broadly speaking, there are three ways in which departments can ramp up the environmental performance of their buildings.

Staff behaviour

One, the most basic, is for departments to institute changes in staff behaviour on the usage of electrical equipment such as lighting and computers. Second, there are numerous options open to departments to make simple material changes to their buildings, such as installing low-energy light bulbs or upgrading inefficient heating or cooling systems. Such ‘non-disruptive’ changes, Alker says, are cost-effective and can typically save a department 20 to 30 per cent on energy bills in the medium term.

But in the context of the UK’s target to slash its CO2 emissions by 80 per cent by 2050, it’s clear that swapping a few light bulbs is not going to be enough. This will push departments towards the third option: wholesale refurbishment of their buildings, often entailing expensive and intrusive changes such as interior and exterior insulation cladding and the installation of equipment such as Combined Heat and Power (CHP) units and micro-renewables.

To stimulate this level of action by departments, the government has since 2006 required all refurbishment of government buildings to reach the ‘excellent’ rating under the Building Research Establishment’s Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM). This is an internationally used scoring system that rates a building’s sustainability according to the environmentally-friendly design features it incorporates.

The OGC points to a number of departmental building refurbishments that have met high BREEAM standards, such as those at the Treasury, the Department for Children, Schools & Families’ Sanctuary Buildings, the Department for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs’ Nobel House headquarters (see box) and the Ministry of Justice’s Petty France building. Using various environmentally-friendly technologies, these modifications have – on paper, at least – significantly improved the efficiency of the government estate.

Practice versus theory

This is not a straightforward picture: awkwardly, a number of the refurbished buildings that have been awarded high BREEAM ratings have scored poorly in DEC. The 2005 refurbishment of DECC’s Whitehall Place HQ, for example, earned the building a Breeam ‘excellent’ rating, despite its lowly ‘G’ in DEC.

Alker says this apparent contradiction is down to the fact that BREEAM measures a building’s environmental impact on paper, while DEC looks at its operation in practice, taking into account factors such as the impact of its occupants and its actual energy consumption. This may seem to undermine the value of the BREEAM rating, but both measures will be important in helping departments cut their emissions.

As they begin to do so, there are two objections that departments are likely to raise against instituting wholesale refurbishment programmes: the huge cost; and the sheer logistical complexity of temporarily relocating staff while work is carried out.

Andrew Lee, chief executive of public watchdog the Sustainable Development Commission, agrees that cost is a real barrier, primarily because a clear business case has yet to be put together showing how investing in sustainable refurbishment can generate medium- or long-term savings. But he adds that with energy prices rising and departments having to tighten their belts as their budgets are squeezed – not to mention the prospect of the legally-binding carbon reduction commitment coming in from next year – the case will become increasingly compelling.

“We’ve got, on the one hand, the Climate Change Act and carbon budgets coming over the horizon; on the other, a recession and massive pressure on public spending – and therefore a huge drive for efficiency in government,” Lee says. “This is something permanent secretaries can do that will hit both targets. Really, it’s a no-brainer.” ?

Case study: Nobel prize for refurbishment

Nobel House, the headquarters of the Department for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), underwent a £25m refurbishment four years ago, earning the building a BREEAM ‘excellent’ rating. The process introduced features such as natural ventilation to eliminate the need for air conditioning, and the fitting of a combined heat and power (CHP) plant. Technical problems delayed its commissioning, but it now provides Nobel House with electricity and heat while cooling its computer systems, reducing its overall demand for grid energy.

Since 2004, the refurbishment has allowed managers to increase the number of staff using the building from 574 to 947 – a 65 per cent increase – while total grid power consumption has increased by only a third; average electricity consumption per staff member has fallen by more than 1,000 kilowatt hours a year. Because the CHP plant is now up and running, Defra expects the building’s DEC rating to improve in 2009.

LINKS
Breakdown of departments’ buildings’ performance compiled by the Observer