RIBA and CIBSE call for collaboration in CarbonBuzz initiative

The CarbonBuzz energy benchmarking initiative, backed jointly by the RIBA and CIBSE gets a new online platform next week. The CarbonBuzz project allows users to record, share and compare the real energy use of building projects and to shed light on the differences between predicted and operational performance. Now RIBA and CIBSE are calling on architects and building services engineers to upload their projects to CarbonBuzz and re-energise the industry’s benchmarking database, which was first launched in 2008. Both institutes have spearheaded the publication of energy data in their annual awards schemes and point out that CarbonBuzz is the best way to demonstrate energy credentials.

“CIBSE welcomes the collaborative industry-wide focus of the initiative, as well as its ability to help develop understanding around the gap between predicted and operational energy use,” commented Hywel Davies, Technical Director, CIBSE. “We are encouraging architects and building services designers to upload their projects to CarbonBuzz.”

The tool caters for the needs of a broad range of stakeholders including local authorities, government portfolio managers, developers, landlords, investors, architects, engineers and facilities managers, and has been piloted extensively with them.

The relaunched platform gives users the ability to store annualised energy records to capture year-on-year energy consumption. Both an anonymous database and published datasets can be filtered and reports generated to assess energy consumption of individual projects or property portfolios.

Supported by CIBSE and RIBA and led by Aedas R&D, the CarbonBuzz platform is the outcome of collaborative research between architects and engineers that has been funded jointly by the Technology Strategy Board and industry partners. FCB Studios, Davis Langdon, AECOM, XCO2, BRE and Autodesk, have worked closely on the platform development alongside the academic partner University College London.

Keynote speakers at the official launch event on June 6, 2013 at City Hall, London will include Justin Snoxall, head of the Business Group at British Land, and Ian Taylor, Partner Studio Leader at FCB Studios, who will introduce the platform and its benefits. British Land, CIBSE’s Carbon Champion of the Year 2013, has delivered energy performance savings of 60 per cent across its London portfolio and is now using CarbonBuzz to monitor performance across its estate.