Low carbon buildings - procurement & specification See all Guides

Our 'Delivering the future, today' guides explain how to successfully specify an exemplar low carbon new build or refurbishment project.

On 21 March 2012 Carbon Trust Scotland launched a suite of four 'Delivering the future, today' guides. The guides have been drawn up to help you with the concept of delivering a low carbon new build or refurbishment.

Many new buildings use more energy than the buildings they replace, as the emphasis is on the expectation that building standards will deliver more efficient buildings.  However non-domestic buildings are much more complex than just building standards, resulting in disappointing results.  The suite of 'Delivering the future, today' guides takes a practical approach to building specification that emphasises operational-in-use targets.

The Carbon Trust research study, Building the future today, published in 2009,  looked at what Britain needs to do to meet the Climate Change Act for non-domestic buildings.  These new guides set out, step-by-step, what building owners, specifiers and designers need to do to deliver these buildings-that are a step up in performance- help them to meet Carbon Reduction Commitment targets, and making compliance with the 2010 Building Standards more cost effective to deliver.

Download the guides:

The guides and related tools are available to download here:

Executive summary - Delivering the future, today (CTG066)

Setting the scene - Delivering the future, today (CTG067)

Project owner's guide - Delivering the future, today (CTG068)

Project manager's guide - Delivering the future today (CTG069)

 

Assessment tools for the energy efficient design of buildings:

Client values and preparation tool (xls) - to assess the client's preparedness to deliver a low carbon building design.

Skills and experience tabulation contractors tool (xls) - to assess the procurement team's knowledge and experience to produce a low carbon impact building.

Low carbon design tracker template (doc) - for design teams to keep track of low carbon items. To be completed by the client/design team for their requirements