Having helped produce the recent RICS guidance for surveying properties affected by Japanese knotweed, Phlorum has officially joined the Property Care Association Invasive Weeds Control Group (RICS/IWCG) as a founder member.

The RICS guidance and PCA/IWCG trade body are a direct response to the problems faced by mortgage lenders in assessing risks to property caused by Japanese knotweed infestations. These problems were highlighted by lenders via the Council of Mortgage Lenders and the Building Societies Association, who helped with the initial steer of the RICS and PCA working groups.

The PCA was founded over twenty years ago to represent professional consultants and contractors working in the damp proofing industry. This was formerly a poorly regulated industry, with specialists being undermined by many unscrupulous companies offering poor service and bad advice, often at inflated prices.

It is the aim of the IWCG to elevate the status of its members such that clients can be assured that they are receiving Japanese knotweed advice from qualified professionals that are regularly audited by a well-established and respected trade body.

Membership of the PCA signs Phlorum up to the Government-licensed Trustmark scheme and also allows our clients’ payments to be secured and protected through Bondpay.

Phlorum directors, Paul Beckett and Richard Schofield, receiving their award

“The Sustain Magazine Awards for Sustainability, Business & the Built Environment are designed to celebrate the high hopes and hard work, commitment and creativity, radicalism and rigour, inspiration and perspiration of all those achieving distinction and success in the field of Sustainability”

We are delighted to have won the Product of the Year category at the prestigious Sustain Magazine Awards in London last night. This was in recognition of the innovative embodied carbon calculator tools that Phlorum has developed through a KTP with Brighton University.

The expert judging panel were particularly impressed by the fact that Brighton and Hove City Council has installed into their planning system an embodied carbon calculator developed by Phlorum. All new planning applications must use this tool as part of the council’s sustainability checklist.

The awards were presented with panache, style and much hilarity, by doyen of stand-up, TV and radio comedy, Fred MacAulay.

Gatwick Diamond Business Awards 2012

We are delighted to have been recently informed that our embodied carbon calculator tool has been short-listed for another sustainability award!

Phlorum is one of three finalists in the Gatwick Diamond Business Awards for Green Business of the Year. Our short-listing followed a lengthy application process that culminated in an interview with awards panel environmental specialists.

The Gatwick Diamond sub-region covers a roughly diamond-shaped area encompassing parts of South London, Surrey, Kent and Sussex. It is a key economic area, not just for the south east but for the country as a whole.

Winners will be announced at a black-tie awards dinner on the 22^nd March 2012 at the Copthorne Effingham Park Hotel.

The Awards will be presented by the hugely talented political satirist, Rory Bremner.

Manchester Climate Change Action Plan

Manchester: A Certain Future, the steering group for the city’s climate change action plan, is holding its 2012 conference on March 16^th from 1.00pm to 5.30pm. The venue is the Pennine Suite of Manchester Metropolitan University’s All Saints Campus on Oxford Road.

The conference follows an interactive workshop format, based on five themes that encompass the overall aim of encouraging behavioural change across Manchester to embrace the challenging objectives of the climate change action plan. The themes are:

• Vision (creating a vision of the future to work towards);
• Culture (using artistic and other cultural media to enhance change);
• Knowledge (giving and sharing knowledge on climate change issues);
• Environment (encouraging behavioural change to benefit the environment); and
• Community (developing communities to adopt the change needed to move forward).

You can find out more about the conference here on the Manchester: A Certain Future website. You can also register your interest to attend the conference here but you’d best hurry as places are strictly limited!

Phlorum is a member of the Manchester: A Certain Future steering group.

Food & Environment Research Agency

Phlorum was involved in the consultation process to review the proposed release of a biological control agent to manage Japanese knotweed. This culminated in a workshop in 2009 to discuss the issues raised by consultees, which was followed by further representations being submitted to Fera.

The release of the pysllid Aphalara itadori (a sap sucking bug related to aphids) was subsequently approved in 2010 in order for field trials to commence.

As a part of the Lessons Learned process to review the success of the consultation process and ultimate release of A. itadori, Fera interviewed several respondents on how their concerns about the bio-control programme were addressed. This included Dr Paul Beckett from Phlorum.

The final Lessons Learned report was published early in 2012. The report makes many recommendations that will be applied to future applications to release other bio-control agents for other pest species (which could still include Japanese knotweed).

One of Phlorum’s main concerns was that a robust cost benefit analysis was not carried out in order to fully explore the benefits versus the risks of releasing a foreign biological agent into the wild. This was noted by Fera and a recommendation for more thorough investigations of the costs and benefits of biological control has been raised for future applications.

The process for assessing the environmental impacts of A. itadori does seem to have been thorough and it has indicated that the risks of unacceptable impact are probably low. However, the evidence demonstrating effective Japanese knotweed control that would show that the risks of release were worth it is yet to be seen.

Contact Fera directly for more information on the Japanese Knotweed: Lessons Learned Exercise.

Monitoring cooking odours at Sirius' test kitchen

Phlorum is currently providing odour assessment and monitoring services for a company that specialises in sustainable odour abatement and ventilation plant for restaurants.

Sirius Products has recognised that the majority of abatement plant currently specified for and installed in commercial kitchens is often based on scaled-down versions of industrial technologies that are inappropriate for treating cooking odours from restaurants.

Sirius has identified scope for developing existing technologies and introducing new ideas that focus on the specifics of restaurant odours and their potential to cause nuisance. They have been very successful in doing this, having developed a novel grease baffle filter and electrostatic precipitators designed to specifically treat oil mists from frying food.

With key clients including Jamie Oliver and Nando’s, Sirius is proving the success of its highly focused approach to odour abatement.

Phlorum has been appointed by Sirius to monitor and characterise the chemical signatures of odours from different cooking styles. This will go on to help Sirius develop further innovations to abate odours from different types of particularly odorous cooking. Scientific support on organic chemistry is being provided through a partnership with the University of Sussex.

Sustain Magazine Awards 2012

We are delighted to have recently been nominated in not one but two categories of the prestigious Sustain Magazine Awards for Sustainability, Business & the Built Environment. This is for our embodied carbon calculator that we have developed to supply clients with valuable carbon consumption metrics to give them a much more accurate picture of the environmental performance of their buildings. The judging panel has been particularly impressed by the work we have undertaken for Brighton and Hove City Council.

The awards are designed to highlight the innovation and commitment of those companies that strive to deliver excellence in the sustainable built environment. Phlorum’s embodied carbon calculator has been nominated in the categories of best new technology and the overall product of the year.  Follow the links to see who we are competing against and who else is nominated in the other categories.

The winners will be announced at a gala dinner in London on March 20th 2012, following the opening day of Ecobuild, the world’s biggest event for sustainable design, construction and the built environment.  The dinner will be held at The International Hotel, Canary Wharf, which overlooks the waterways of London Docklands.

The Retrofit 2012 academic conference took place in Salford last week.

Organised by Salford University, the conference brought together a wide range of researchers from a range of disciplines.  Its purpose was  to consider and debate how we can tackle the dramatic reduction in demand from the existing building stock required to meet the 2050 target of a reduction in CO2 emissions by 80% (over 1990 levels).

Phlorum’s Jackie Strube was there presenting a paper on solid wall insulation and its significance in achieving retrofit targets and was delighted to meet so many people with a shared interest.

Highlights of the conference were the presentation by Brenda Boardman of Oxford Brookes on her new report,  ‘Achieving Zero’, available to download here. 

There was also a useful reminder that updated domestic energy statistics are available from DECC in a new format, together with a range or interactive tools: Available to download here.

Salford University are carrying out extensive research into retrofit methods and last year launched Joule Terrace (here), a house constructed to Victorian standards in a climate controlled environmental chamber which is being used for a range of research projects.

Public exhibition on ecological issues

Yesterday, Phlorum staff attended a public exhibition for the master-planning proposals for St Bede’s, a large private school in East Sussex.
The school owns a major land resource in its rural location, many of which has important ecological and visual amenity value.
Phlorum has already undertaken a number of ecological assessments for the school, helping them gain planing approval for a number of new and updated educational facilities.
The aim of the exhibition was to consult with the local community in order to identify constraints and opportunities for St Bede’s future development and enhancement of its land resource. A report detailing the constraints and opportunities analysis for the school can be viewed here.
Feedback from the event was extremely positive, with most people appreciating the effort the school has put into engaging with its neighbours. On ecological issues, the effective management of invasive species such as Japanese knotweed was a recurring theme in the questions from attendees. Most minds being put at rest by the school’s inclusion of Japanese knotweed in its estate management plan.

Further information on the episode that Phlorum helped with is provided in an earlier blog post.