On 30th November, Phlorum attended Manchester: A Certain Future Conference, where delegates joined together to help develop the city’s action plan on climate change.

Overcoming the snow, members of our team took this opportunity to hear more about Manchesters’ progressive planning policies; as well as visiting clients who wished to learn more about our innovative, Life-Cycle Carbon Footprinting Tool.

The conference was interesting. It was organised by the Stakeholder Steering Group, and was attended by a plethora of organisations, including members of the council, representatives from the football teams, construction companies, SMEs, multi-nationals, landlords and interested citizens. Hosted at the Museum of Science and Industry, the conference aimed to mix past accomplishments with potential future ones. The workshops encouraged everyone to get involved and share their views, whilst strategically placed information boards reminded us all of actions Manchester had already put in place.

The day ended with an inspiring speech from Mr Pekka Sauri, the Deputy Mayor of Helsinki who outlined the actions they had taken to reduce carbon emissions and enhance the environment in their city. Using a combined heat and power (CHP) district heating system, the city was able to reduce its carbon emissions by 40%. The system also works to provide cooling in the summer.

Manchester aims to become Britain’s greenest city, a charge which all attendees seemed to believe possible. Enthusiasm is obviously not in short supply – now the city needs to turn this into collaborative, forward thinking, and importantly, direct action. Phlorum actively support this and suggest attacking the carbon intensive sources first, combining the improvement and increase of public transport with a refurbishment program for the most inefficient building stock. The action starts… now!

Phlorum embodied carbon tool at Ecobuild 2010

Phlorum will be exhibiting their life-cycle carbon footprint model at Ecobuild. The model has been created as part of a Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with the University of Brighton, and the project is halfway through its two-year duration. Phlorum won the opportunity to exhibit through a competition run by the Modern Built Environment Knowledge Transfer Network (a subsiduary of CIRIA), which looked to find the most innovative and creative projects aiming to have an effect on sustainability of the construction industry in the UK.

The life-cycle carbon footprint calculator estimates the whole-life carbon emissions associated with new-build residential developments. This includes the carbon embodied within a dwelling, in its materials, methods and techniques of construction, associated with the use of the building, in the operation of its building services, lights and appliances, and emissions resulting from deconstruction or demolition of the building. The model is intended to be used as a design tool to reduce such emissions, promoting alternative materials and methods of construction, especially those with low embodied energy or embodied carbon. Use of the model could halve the amount of carbon embodied within the dwelling, and help with making the dwelling  ‘zero-carbon’ over its lifetime.

To see the model for yourself, come and chat with us at the innovation zone at Ecobuild, from Tuesday 2nd March 2010 to Thursday 4th.