Our adaptation schemes are based on passively driven natural ventilation and cooling, operating in well-insulated buildings
— Alan Short
“The scale of the problem is huge. We have until 2050 by the obligations under the Climate Change Act to get our emissions down by 80% from what they are now, and we don’t know how to do that.”
These words, spoken by Paul Morrell, former UK Chief Construction Advisor, spell out the challenge the NHS faces in attempting to reduce the 18 million tonnes of CO2 it is responsible for producing every year – around 3% of the entire annual UK emissions – by its 28 million m2 of buildings.
It’s a challenge that has taken on a new urgency. As summers are predicted to warm, hospitals are under pressure to reduce the risk of overheating, particularly in the sort of heat waves the UK experienced in 2003, 2006 and 2009, because of the associated increased mortality rates.
“Faced with more frequent hot spells, NHS acute hospital trusts may turn increasingly to air conditioning,” said Professor Alan Short from the University of Cambridge's Department of Architecture. “But such energy-intensive strategies would have a disastrous effect on the national carbon reduction programme. It’s a double whammy: the pressure to reduce energy consumption colliding with the pressure to protect patients and staff from overheating.
“The last government’s plan was to replace the NHS Estate with a suite of new hospitals but the 2008 economic collapse put an end to that. And that means turning back to the existing estate. How can we make the best use of the stock we’ve got to make it fit for purpose?”
The answer, Short believes, is to be found in the innovative low-energy design strategies that have been developed as part of the recently completed Design and Delivery of Robust Hospital Environments in a Changing Climate (DeDeRHECC) project that he has been leading. The collaborative team included researchers from the Universities of Cambridge, Leeds and Loughborough and the Open University, and was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council with support from the Department of Health.
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Image Credit: DeDeRHECC
Reproduced courtesy of the University of Cambridge
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