This month’s forthcoming (January) edition of technology magazine, Wired, features a round-up of The 25 Big Ideas for 2012 that will transform society for next year and beyond and they have highlighted ‘Retrofitting The City’ as the No. 13 – the concept upon which Carbon Estates is based upon.
The article which includes concepts such as Neurocinema, Wireless Mind Control and 3D surfacing (3d render holograhpical blueprints and models), has rated the importance of reducing carbon and costs inherent in property emissions highly. With buildings accounting for 80 per cent of the capital’s (London) carbon emissions, there is great potential to make large reductions and subsequent savings on energy spend.
A more commonly adopted approach than five or ten years ago is set to really become a movement with real momentum in the coming 24 months with Obama administration projecting savings of $40 billion (£25 billion) annually on energy bills for US businesses. Similarly in the UK we have movements such as the Better Buildings Partnership and the UK Green Building Council also championing the potential benefits of retrofitting.
Of course in order to retrofit you need to establish a baseline for performance analysis and this is where a tool like Carbon Estates is really allowing property owners and managers to see the potential. For many it comes down to whether there is a business case for such activity and with Carbon Estate’s SmartROI function, property owners are able to calculate upfront costs, projected savings and return on investment periods.
2012 will be a big year for the UK as it aims to meet it’s carbon reductions targets and an independent assessment says that the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions are actually increasing by 3.5%; more than double the 1.3% growth in the economy, according to a recent report from PricewaterhouseCoopers’ Low Carbon Economy Index. Measures such as the Green Deal, which are designed to enable large scale retrofitting, will be pivotal to determining how well placed the UK is to meet it’s targets.
