To stimulate market development, sustainable urban housing must be a competitive alternative to traditional housing. Furthermore the principles of urban ecology must be well known and operational, so that progress can be monitored and evaluated. EGCN Green Build Monitoring Tools are developed for this purpose.
What is Green Build Monitoring Tools?
- Measures to what extent the building project meets the political priorities for sustainable urban housing.
- Compares the degree of sustainability among projects and identify best practices for future inspiration and market development.
- Initiates an environmental management system that can lead to the development of an European Green Cities Certificate.
To achieve these goals EGCN introduces the following Green Build Monitoring Tools.
1. Financial Tools
Regarding financial tools the EGCN partners have been discussing
possibilities of developing "Green Bonds" with several Danish financial
institutions. The conclusions are:
- Green Bonds are not considered realistic regarding housing projects directly.
- But regarding energy supply systems like wind-farms and solar plants the idea about highlighting energy and environmental concerns into issuing shares in kind of the thought of "Green Bonds" is feasible.
- Green Build Monitoring Tools regarding housing projects are considered very important to achieve improved financing of more sustainable housing by providing basic information for setting of a higher building value.
The main EGCN partner contribution regarding financial tools was made by SIR's via their contribution to extend the Austrian Energy Point System for Salzburg region to also include ecological criteria.
Another initiative was promoted by Cenergia in connection with the
establishment of the
Copenhagen Solar Cells Stock Exchange, where you can now buy shares in solar
photovoltaic projects.
2. Building Tools
GREEN Catalogue:
Several of our EGCN members are involved in own national are directly or indirectly involved in own
national preparation of the EU Energy Performance Directive - and five of EGCN
members have been involved in the EU project "GREEN CatalogueW with
Cenergia as project coordinator.
EGCN partners have thus focussed on how to influence national work in project partner countries to utilise the GREEN catalogue tool of energy efficiency indicators within the preparatory work for new national standards for implementing the EU Energy Performance Directive by the end of 2005.
GREEN Catalogue is a manual with a definition of performance indicators and performance requirements/recommendations for best practice technologies in the area of Rational Use of Energy (RUE) and Renewable Energy Systems (RES) in buildings. The manual gives information on 32 different building related technologies from approx. 200 producers, builders, cities, energy offices and energy companies in 10 different EU-countries. Green Catalogue is a practical support for the implementation of the EU Energy Performance Directive for Building (EPD).
For further information see: www.greencatalogue.com
Green Build Energy Audit Tool (E-Tool)
In connection to project
Green City Building partners from Austria,
Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Poland have contributed to further develop
an adapted Polish energy audit tool based on previous development from Green
Building Challenge process. The Green Build Energy Tool is worked out by
technical consultant NAPE to use for testing pilot
building projects in Piaseczno Municipality.
For further information see:
E-Tool Piaseczno (English version)
Model description
Green Global 21:
Green Global 21 is an energy and environmental point rating system. The
objective is to present an operational tool for sustainability evaluations to
decision makers, builders, engineers and other interested parties involved in
designing building projects of all sizes – from single-family houses up to whole
urbanisations. A questionnaire about sustainability measures for new or existing
buildings and urban development areas is developed and can be found at the Green
Global 21 web site.
For further information see: www.greenglobal21.com
In connection to project "Green City Building" Green Global 21 has been
adpted to use in Sykies Municipality, Greece - by developing it into following:
Green Build Questionnaire for Energy & Environmental Screening
ASCOT:
ASCOT is a simple and quick calculation tool for economical optimisation of
sustainability measures in building renovation and new construction projects.
For further information see: www.cenergia.dk/ascot_download_form.asp
DCBA method:
The DCBA-method is developed by EGCN partner Zonnige Kempen in Belgium. It is
also called the four-variant method as it entails four levels of sustainability:
D The normal situation, where there is no environmental concern at
all.
C Corrected normal consumption, where the environment is taken into
account.
B Restrict damage to a minimum, taking the environment as the point
of departure.
A The absolute best situation, where maximum sustainability is
reached as regards to a
particular aspect.
The DCBA-method is a design method that can help the designer in a structured
manner to deal with the numerous possibilities he has. In consultation with the
whole building team, target levels are laid down per subject. Using the
checklist one can verify per phase which measures are applicable in that phase
and whether or not the established environmental profile has been observed. In
the pre-design, for instance, there are not yet so many measures to take, but
the measures that are taken, do have considerable impact on the use of materials
and energy in the following phases. By selecting the measures for the pre-design
only, one can verify if the project – at that time – has sufficient potential to
become a sustainable project. However, this is no guarantee for a good result in
the following phases. For instance, one can take into account the compactness of
the building in the draft design and, this way, score good marks, but if the
final design does not provide for sufficient insulation, one will loose marks
there and the level of sustainability will go down.
Read more here:
DCBA introduction.pdf
DCBA - Checklist for environental building.xls
Green Diploma:
The Green Diploma model has been developed in co-operation with the Corporation
of Danish Housing Associations, BL.
The “Green Diploma” model is suggested in 3 levels (A, B and C), where level
C is near to normal minimum demands, but including demands on “energy quality
control” and use of an “energy and environmental check list”.
The main areas of the “Green Diploma” are:
- Introduction of an “Energy Plus” standard which is one level better than
normal minimum demands. E.g. in Denmark use of low energy standard 2 which is
25% better than normal.
- Use of an “energy quality control” system for building projects.
This includes: blower door tests, thermo photography and energy characteristics / energy signature together with a green accounting after one year of operation (including heat use, DHW use, electricity use etc.).
- Use of “Green Catalogue” BAT sheets to ensure an energy quality which is
better than normal for a number of technologies.
- Use of the “Green Catalogue” energy and environmental check list and point
system.
- Other areas: use of an adapted energy supply system with small losses.
- avoidance of dangerous materials
- documented bio factor
- documented total economy
- building project prepared for use of solar energy.
For further information see: www.grontdiplom.dk
Energy signature - building energy characteristics:
Energy signature is measuring the energy consumption as function of the outdoor
temperature in order to secure that expected energy savings are achieved. This
tool is developed as an useful supplement to blower door tests and thermo
photography of cold bridges.
For more information see:
Dalgasparken_Energy Signature+.pdf
3. Urban Area Tools
Besides looking into Green Financing tools and the more specific building
oriented monitoring tools related to EU project “Green Catalogue” etc. project
group development work is primarily aiming at urban district level as a main
additional contribution to what is ongoing in other projects.
Therefore the Green Build tool development in EGCN project is focusing on Green
Build Urban Area Tools that can promote good urban initiatives and implemented
solutions of sustainable building projects.
The main purpose for urban area tools is to monitor city ability in relation to
more sustainable housing and energy supply systems.
For further information see:
Guidelines for Green Build Tool questionnaire.pdf
Green build tool questionnaire.doc
Green Build Tool - example from Volos, Greece.pdf
Energy Balance calculation:
With special focus on energy supply conditions, EGCN partners have been
assisted by the Danish company PlanEnergi in order to develop an additional tool
that can be combined with the Breen Build questionnaire in order to calculate
consequences of changes in energy supply sources.
Calculation has been done for the urban area Piaseczno (Poland). The conclusions
are:
- The fuel consumption in Piaseczno is dominated by natural gas, oil and electricity produces on coal. Renewable energy (wood) covers only 6%. At the end user side room heating and domestic hot water heating dominate followed by electricity consumption in households. These three categories cover 99% of the total end user consumption.
- Comparing with national Polish figures Piaseczno has very low energy consumption per inhabitant. When it comes to CO2 emissions Piaseczno has on 1/3 of the national level. One main factor is the absence of energy consuming industries.
- Even with the low energy consumption and low CO2 emissions there is room for improvement. Replacing 78% of the imported electricity by co-generation based on natural gas and replacing coal at the heating stations in Piaseczno would result in a reduction of CO2 emissions by 24%.
For further information:
Energy Balance for Piaseczno.pdf
Green Build Checklist
In connection to project
Green City Building partners from Austria, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Hungary and Poland
have contributed to develop this new Green Build Tool worked out by Salzburg
City and technical consultant SIR.
The checklist results will indicate your projects degree of sustainability
regarding 4 areas of evaluation: 1) Quality of location and social issues, 2)
Quality of design and technical equipment, 3) Energy Performance and supply and
4) Ecology of building materials.
For further information see:
Green Build Checklist Salzburg
Background model description (German version)
