SaaStainability

Sustainability Now

As you might expect of a business devoted to helping people collaborate online, BIW people are big fans of online events, which is why I "attended" Sustainability Now in July 2008 (see ExtranetEvolution post). The event, organised by Phil Clark and the sustainability team at Building magazine, is being run again this year on 13-14 May 2009 and a promotional email received yesterday promises:

"visible improvements in appearance, show layout and functionality, all designed to enhance the user experience. Discuss and debate all things sustainable without ever leaving your computer"

Sound good? Register here.

US government and schools promoting SaaS

SaaS blogger Jeff Kaplan writes (U.S. Schools and Government Promoting SaaS and Cloud Computing) about how:

1. the new Obama administration is promoting Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and cloud computing as part of its overhaul of the government and economic stimulus efforts, and
2. some US school systems and universities are also making a concerted effort to move to the cloud

As we have previously suggested (see related posts below), the UK government and other agencies and pressure groups should also be playing their part in a similar initiative, not least because of the potential climate change benefits. Otherwise, we run the risk of lagging behind the US in yet another area of construction-related IT provision (see UK architects going green but lagging behind US on BIM).

Related posts

• Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age (04 December 2008)
• UKGBC overlooking 'green ICT' potential? (25 September 2008)
• Greening Government ICT (2) (12 August 2008)
• Greening Government ICT (18 July 2008)

Save the planet = save the organisation money

"The Green IT discussion has moved on from ‘save the planet’ to ‘save the organisation money’, with the common denominator: use less energy" - says an Information Age review of different surveys reported here.

The world’s use of IT and communications systems contributes 2% of global carbon emissions, and Green IT’s most publicised polluter, the data centre, contributes about a quarter of these emissions. The manufacture – and disposal – of IT infrastructure also contributes significantly to global carbon emissions.

Google to monitor energy use

Earth2Tech reports (Google Jumps Into Organizing Smart Meter Energy Data) that Google is developing an online application, “PowerMeter,” to help people to manage their home energy consumption. Currently being tested with Google employees, the web-based software will eventually be rolled out to consumers - or at least to consumers whose houses are equipped with a smart electricity meter - and it will apparently be free.

This news is not likely to thrill other software developers who have been working to develop their own applications, but it is a useful reminder that we are fast approaching an era in which the performance of the buildings we occupy will be something that we can constantly monitor and manage online (see Earth2Tech follow-up - 11 February 2008 update). For a long time, much of the technological input to designing and constructing a building was focused just on these delivery phases, with little thought as to whole life costs. Initiatives such as Google's echo the efforts of firms like Pachube to create a more pervasive ICT infrastructure that allows us to operate and maintain our buildings, and the appliances inside them, more efficiently.

Building Sustainable Design

UBM, the publisher of Building magazine, has just launched a new journal, Building Sustainable Design, focused on low-energy building design and superseding Building Services Journal that used to be published by arrangement with CIBSE.

Why mention it here? Well, for a start, editor Andy Pearson is keen to include relevant contributions from ICT companies showing how information technology can contribute to the design of more sustainable buildings. And, as part of the publication's embrace of online media, BSD also features a blog in which BIW's Paul Wilkinson (see his blog) has written one of the first posts, putting the case for greater use of social media to support collaboration throughout the decision-making processes surrounding planning, design, construction and FM.

Web-based tools and vehicle emissions

Apparently a sample group of Denver citizens have been trialling a software package that monitors their day-to-day driving habits (read Earth2Tech's Web-based Tools Can Help Cut Vehicle Emissions by 10%).

Vehicles were fitted with greenhouse gas-tracking systems to find out whether online feedback regarding how idling, sudden braking and rapid acceleration increase carbon dioxide emissions and fuel costs would change driving habits. Participating drivers cut idling by more than 35 percent and reduced emissions by 10 percent.

What if we fitted such systems to vehicles delivering materials to construction sites? Already, contractors and suppliers are being urged to adopt greener practices and to assess the carbon footprint of their activities (AMEE could  help here, I'm sure). Online feedback would be a prompt to drivers to make an effort to cut down emissions, etc, and the results could also be automatically fed back to a desktop reporting tool so that their company and project managers can view and maintain an accurate record of their performance.

Google searches and CO2

There has been discussion today (see the Sunday Times, BBC, Daily Telegraph, Nicholas Carr and Earth2Tech, among others) about claims that a Google search is thought to generate about 7g of carbon dioxide (two searches would be equivalent to boiling a kettle). Google claims that the number is "many times too high" and one Google search is equivalent to about 0.2 grams of CO2 (see also TechWorldNews article).

Whatever the figures, internet searching (whether of Google or an online repository of data such as the BIW project control platform), so long as it returns a valid result, will, I'm sure often still be many more times efficient than an individual conducting a time-consuming search through indexes of folders, multiple email tape back-ups, or - worse still - having to delve through reams of paperwork perhaps stored in multiple filing cabinets (with all the carbon footprint implications of producing and storing that paper).

UK architects going green but lagging behind US on BIM

The Christmas break has given me chance to catch up on some interesting links that I saved just before the holidays began. Foremost was an Autodesk news release (also reported by Cadalyst) describing the findings from an online survey of 211 architects conducted in the UK earlier this year (May-June, to be more precise - the apparent delay in releasing the findings may be due to Autodesk conducting a similar exercise in the USA).

The executive summary is that:

• more than eight in ten UK architects recognise the impact of human involvement on global climate change, are taking personal responsibility for the effects placed on the environment and are working toward change
• Regulatory requirements and client interest are the main green driving factors
• Architects are moving forward in adopting green design practices - a trend that is predicted to continue

Not surprisingly, given Autodesk's involvement, there is recognition for the role of design software to evaluate and explore alternative building materials to maximise energy performance and minimise environmental impact and to specify, predict and evaluate solar heating. Nearly all UK architects surveyed were heavily reliant on use of computer–assisted design systems, and two in ten architects (22%) are beginning to incorporate the use of building information modelling into their practice (no mention of construction collaboration systems or similar). This figure was half that achieved (44%) in the US survey - reflecting, I think, how the UK is lagging behind the US in its adoption of BIM.

The detailed results have some interesting results, but I'm not sure how conclusive they are given the size of the sample and the online methodology. Hopefully, some other AEC bloggers will pick up on some of the points.

(Update (06 January 2009): A news release from RSMeans Business Solutions, a division of US publisher Reed Construction Data, describes a recently conducted US study of the rate of adoption of BIM and discovered that the rate of adoption has increased significantly over the last 12 months.

Of the offices sampled that use BIM, 96 percent indicated they adopted it within the last 12 months and nearly half of all respondents estimate that all projects will use BIM within one to two years. One-third of smaller firms (under 50 staff) estimated that their staff uses BIM more than 50 percent of the time - almost triple the rate of larger firms.

The report cites cost, training and support as the most significant barriers to BIM adoption and as a result many expressed resistance until clients demand it.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from BIW

Enjoy the Christmas and New Year holiday period and we look forward to welcoming you back to SaaStainability.com and the BIW website early in 2009.

Best wishes - Colin, Paul and the rest of the BIW team.

AIA green?

Almost every week, I talk to people about the extent to which construction project teams have dispensed with producing information in paper-based formats. When I first got involved with construction collaboration platforms in the late 1990s, it was conceivable that electronic forms of communication might mean most teams becoming, if not exactly paperless, at least using less paper. But it hasn't really happened (at least, not yet). Sure, some teams have dramatically cut their use of paper, but others - perhaps due to personal, organisational, or even legal attachment to hard copy communications - still churn out thousands of sheets of paper every year.

In Dubai recently, for example, I talked to project teams who told me that hard copies of correspondence still had to be produced so that they could be signed and produced, if necessary, in the event of a dispute. I have also talked before (see ExtranetEvolution posts here and here, for instance) about architects being insistent on not using on-screen mark-up tools as they prefer to "bleed" all over a drawing.

I was not surprised, therefore, to read that professional reliance on paper even extends to some of the industry's professional institutions. In the US, James Van, in his All Things BIM blog, castigates the AIA for sending him credits to use Fedex to ship paper about. In his post, AIA Green?, he also complains about being sent a booklet about the winners of the AIA New York State Design Awards rather than being notified via a website (there is one [here], but, as a commenter points out, it's helpfully devoid of much information). James calls on fellow AIA members to lobby the organisation and its local chapters to fight for more environmentally friendly communication practices. I am sure there are many AEC organisations in the UK that could also change their ways.