BSRIA, CEM Develop Existing Home Environmental Property Audit

August 10, 2007 // Published as a news service by IHS

BSRIA and County Estate Management (CEM) jointly developed a carbon footprint tool for existing homes.

The project was commissioned by CEM in December 2006 and completed in about three months. According to the companies, the structured eco-friendly system was created to promote green practices at existing residential properties.

BSRIA originally wanted to develop an energy conservation assessment tool, known to the project team as "greening checklist." CEM identified the need for a thorough and phased approach to offering practical advice to property owners, which broadened the scope of the checklist.

Green Vision is part of a range of carbon footprint assessments and comes at a time when property industry bodies are warning that not enough is being done to make existing homes greener, according to BSRIA.

The project was devised exclusively for CEM by the BSRIA Design and FM Innovation team. Through key skills such as design background, engineering research and site surveying and reporting, BSRIA delivered to CEM a "green health check" tool that calculates a property's carbon footprint.

The tool was designed to assign a property an EcoRating on a scale of 1-10 (10 being the least environmentally friendly) based on findings on:

• Energy management.
• Waste recycling.
• Use of energy efficient light sources.
• Bicycle storage facilities.

At the end of the assessment, recommendations are made to improve a property's carbon footprint, with CEM then being able to provide costs for implementing the recommendations and overseeing the works.

Source: BSRIA.