CIC East Midlands

Dr Mark Gillott is an Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Institute of Sustainable Energy Technology at the School of the Built Environment. He has over 14 year’s research experience in low carbon sustainable energy technologies and low energy buildings. Dr Gillotts research includes the multi-disciplinary consortium project working on the £2million EPSRC/E.ON CALEBRE research project aimed at substantially reducing the energy use in the UK’s existing housing stock by investigating ‘Consumer-Appealing Low Energy Technologies for Building Retrofitting’. He is also currently project managing the research and development of six new low energy houses which comprise the ‘Creative Energy Homes Project’ (CEH) at the University of Nottingham. To develop the CEH project he has attracted over £2 million from industry including companies such as E.ON, Tarmac and BASF.

12:50              Tour of the Creative Energy Homes

13:45              ‘Forward Looking’

                        Sarah Sturrock, Deputy Director Sustainable Buildings, Communities and Local Government 

Sarah took up the role of Deputy Director for Sustainable Buildings in January 2009. She leads the team responsible for policy on improving the sustainability of new buildings to support the UK’s commitments to help tackle climate change. This includes responsibility for the Building Control system, Code for Sustainable Homes and zero carbon for non-domestic buildings.

Before this, Sarah had a range of roles in the Department and its predecessors, including acting Director of Strategy for the Thames Gateway; Deputy Director for Local Government Quality & Performance, with responsibility for developing a new local government performance framework; and Private Secretary to the Rt Hon Nick Raynsford MP when he was Minister for Local Government and Fire. 

Her earlier career in the civil service included work on waste management and pollution control, including negotiating legislation in Brussels; housing and regeneration programmes in London; and performance management of London Underground.

14:05              ‘The Sustainable Construction Business’

                        Dr Jacqueline Glass, Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Sustainable Construction, Department of Civil & Building Engineering, Loughborough University 

                        Dr Glass joined Loughborough University as a Lecturer in Architectural Engineering in 2003, where she teaches on undergraduate programmes in Architectural Engineering & Design Management, Construction Engineering Management and post-graduate courses (Jacqui is also Admissions Tutor for AEDM). Dr Glass has published extensively and has been a keynote speaker in the USA, Canada and Europe, giving addresses to CEN, USGBC, Royal Architectural Institute of Canada, the US Government Federal Facilities Committee, and a dedicated lecture tour attended by about 1,000 industry professionals. Most recently, these interests have expanded to take into account the issue of resilience and security; she is a Co-Investigator on the 'Pre-Empt' project which aims to produce a decision-support toolkit to help practitioners create buildings with 'bouncebackability'.

Having studied Architecture at Oxford Brookes University and obtained RIBA Part II in 1994, Jacqui then undertook an EPSRC sponsored PhD on tilt-up concrete construction. On completion of her PhD in 1997, she was given the Alumni Association Graduation Award for 'outstanding contribution to the life of the University', and then joined Oxford Brookes University as a Senior Lecturer in Architectural Technology. During the following five years she also worked as Architectural Consultant to the British Cement Association and has always maintained a close relationship with the cement and concrete industry; Jacqui has recently worked with Cembureau, Cement Association of Canada, British Precast and The Concrete Centre. She is currently supervising 12 PhD and EngD students many of whom are sponsored by building materials organisations to carry out research on environmental or sustainability topics; this is leading to new work on organisational transformation for sustainability (through strategy development, technical innovation and managerial actions).

14:20              ‘Construction and the Economy’

                        Open Forum – Policy Debate on housing and the impact on the built

                        environment

14:35               Summary and Close

The EMCBE organised a Construction Industry Council "Round Table Institutional Networking Event" at the University of Nottingham on Wednesday 8th July 2009. Delegates were present representing EMCBE, emda, RIBA, CIOB, ABE, ICE RTPI APS and Costain.

The purpose of the event was to invite members of relevant professional institutions and organisations to meet together and share thoughts and experiences on a particular topic. The topic chosen was around Sustainable Buildings, mainly residential and the event included a tour around the Creative Energy Homes Project (some complete and occupied, others due for completion fairly soon).

The meeting opened with a welcome from Wayne Lord, Chair of Construction Industry Council East Midlands and a law lecturer within the Department of Civil and Building Engineering at Loughborough University. A presentation then followed from Dr Mark Gillott, Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Institute of Sustainable Energy at University of Nottingham. Dr Gillott provided an overview of the Creative Energy Homes Project with two of the key messages being "retrofit" is the key to providing sustainable homes of the future together with utilising existing technology and materials in a different way rather than trying to find new technologies.

Delegates were then provided with a tour around the Creative Energy Homes.

The afternoon continued with a "Forward Looking" update on legislation initiatives in relation to Sustainable Buildings from Sarah Sturrock the Deputy Director Sustainable Buildings, Communities and Local Government. Sarah indicated the trend for policy and regulatory development were tending away from being prescriptive to allow the construction industry to find technical and practical solutions to the problems and to encourage innovation in the construction and/or retrofitting of sustainable buildings. The final speaker was Dr Jacqueline Glass, Senior Lecturer in Architecture and Sustainable Construction at Loughborough University who provided guidance as to how businesses should develop their corporate sustainability on a rising scale from rejection, non-responsiveness, compliance, efficiency, strategic proactivity to the sustaining corporation.

Some lively debate then followed touching on skills, innovation and the need to educate users of buildings to live in a sustainable way. The meeting closed with some positive thoughts and suggestions for the future.