This is a follow-up to my blog on losing engineers due to the recession and getting school leavers into the industry. The same CIBSE Journal discussed the difficulties that face young engineers in finding and/or keeping a job.

I remember the recession that seriously impacted the UK construction industry in the late 80’s/early 90’s there were a few years where student numbers entering the industry fell significantly. This ‘lost generation’ has been missed by the industry since then. As pointed out in the editorial we are seeing young Building Services Engineers moving out of the profession into the energy-supply sector working for utilities or renewables companies. This could well mean another lost generation which will pose a future problem when more demanding regulations are going to make the need for top class Building Services Engineers even more necessary.

So when the recession is over how can we attract kids into the Building Services sector?

I mentioned in my previous blog passionate people can help make passionate engineers. There are many kids who are worried about the environment and want to do something about it. Now imagine getting these kids as they are deciding upon a career, getting them to understand the impact of buildings on our environment and let them see that they can make a significant difference. Same goes for students interested in Architecture. Let’s make the future building designers – Eco-Warriors – that have both the enthusiasm and aptitude to tackle sustainable design more aggressively.

Today’s kids are also much more tactile than previous generations as they have been brought up on Playstation’s and Wii’s. This will make them more willing to use building simulation tools and computer technology that will be key components in achieving the highest standard of sustainable design.

However, to make the work environment more conducive for this next generation and for the future of the construction industry we would need the long awaited changes to the construction industry to take place. Consequently, I think professional engineering organisations such as CIBSE (UK), ARBS (Australia) and ASHRAE (North America) and architectural organisations such as the RIBA (UK) and AIA in North America should be helping in making the construction industry more appealing in order to attract more high quality students into the industry. To achieve this objective it is important that academic institutions play their part to provide the course that excite and stimulate students and provide them with the knowledge to become Eco-Warriors.

Am I confident of success? Unfortunately not in the timescale I believe we need to mitigate climate change.

For a few years Google SketchUp have had a little program called LayOut ‘hidden’ as part of SketchUp Pro.

At the AIA exhibition in Miami LayOut was launched in full force. The SketchUp (SU for simplicity) booth was dedicated to LayOut and from what I saw the public loved it.

LayOut was originally a presentation tool for SketchUp. Late last year the SketchUp team announced LayOut 2.1 as part of SketchUp Pro 7.1. What excited the SU community was that dimensioning was added to LayOut and ‘shizam’ LayOut was a whole new proposition.

At the AIA booth there were lots of construction documents generated from LayOut. They looked very, very good.

You can find out more about LayOut (http://sketchup.google.com/product/layout.html) on the main Google SU website.

Alternatively there are a couple of YouTube videos that are worth viewing: an introduction and an explanation of the three principal reasons for using LayOut…

You can also go to the IES website for more information on the free IES SketchUp plug-in and ways get LayOut via discount on SketchUp Pro.

It is well worth a look.

I have just left the AIA exhibition in Miami which was on from the 10th-12th of June.  It is the first time I have been to Miami and as expected it was hot and humid.  Dimitri, Michelle and Angela from our US division were on our booth.

We announced the launch of version 6.1 of the <VE> and in particular our new SketchUp plug-in, the next generation of our Gaia technology and our Bioclimatic analysis capability.  There was lots of interest in all of these new capabilities as well as our improved Revit plug-in, and the new gbXML healing tool that considerably improves gbXML import for Revit, Graphisoft, Bentley and other gbXML exporters.

The exhibition looked good and the Miami Convention Centre was much better than the Moscone Centre in San Francisco last year.  However, the footfall was extremely low.  Many of the big companies have been slowly paring back their activity at AIA and many said they would put in less effort next year.

AIA need not worry as IES will be their next year so that should help protect their numbers!

There is a ‘software pavilion’ where they group all the disparate software companies together.  This makes it much easier for anyone interested in software to find us, and also much easier for others to avoid the ‘techies’.

What was interesting was several of the biggies e.g. Google SketchUp, Autodesk and others had big ‘sustainable’ booths built of all recycled materials.  Smaller booths with less people would have been even better.  They will probably do both over the next few years unless the show’s numbers pick up.

On the last day Michelle was telling me that she met the Vectorworks people who had been miscategorised and put rows and rows away from the software pavilion.  Don’t worry guys you did not miss much.

However, to be fair although the footfall was low we had good quality contacts so that’s better than large numbers of contacts that don’t have much value.

I personally had a number of press interviews and good discussions with others including SketchUp, Autodesk, Graphisoft, Bentley and Trelligence.  So it was well worthwhile suffering the humidity.

Those of you that know the company I work for – IES (www.iesve.com) – will know that we are the market leader in providing analysis tools for the construction industry. 

Now what I am about to say is not marketing, it is extremely important to the point I wish to make.

IES is seen by the venture capital community as a Cleantech company.  We have won Cleantech awards and are highly rated in many VC Top Cleantech company lists.  Now IES supplies our technology to the construction industry yet IES is seen as Cleantech and the construction industry isn’t – Why?

Look at the companies that are grouped in the Cleantech space for example there are companies which cover renewables, energy storage, advances materials, energy controls, environmental quality and safety, and water.  The IES software covers all of this and more so we are a Cleantech company. 

Now it is the architects and engineers that have to wade through the Cleantech manufacturer’s greenwash then design and make this Cleantech technology work in buildings.  They are the ones that have to make the buildings meet increasingly stringent regulations and also get a good BREEAM or LEED rating.

Therefore why are companies in the Cleantech space so highly regarded by the VC community but the construction industry is not?  The growth potential for Architects and Engineers in terms of sustainable design is increasing dramatically so why are construction companies not re-branding themselves as Cleantech? 

I think there are three reasons:
• The construction industry is seen as a low margin business and hence not sexy as far as VC’s are concerned.
• The construction industry is a behemoth that is slow to respond.  Other industries (e.g. utilities, renewables, materials) have been quick to jump onto the Cleantech bandwagon and these companies have seen their share value benefit.  How many products have suddenly become ‘Green’ over the last few years.
• The worldwide construction industry is being forced into the sustainability market e.g. regulations and market forces such as Voluntary Environmental Rating Systems (VERS) such as LEED and BREEAM.  If you visit the websites of most construction companies they talk the talk but crawl the walk.

As a consequence construction companies are not seen as Cleantech.  However, I expect some bright, nimble architects or engineers will see that they have more chance of significant VC investment and subsequent value if they alter their business model and differentiate themselves by committing fully to sustainable design.  I am sure they would get the VC funding with the right strategy and that they would be successful. 

Once the sustainable design business model was proven the Behemoth would slowly turn in the right direction.

In a letter to the CIBSE Journal the impact of losing engineers in a recession to other industries was raised.  This reminds me of the other long UK recession in the late eighties and early nineties that saw many engineers more to other sectors.  However, it was easier to move to other sectors two decades ago as whilst the construction industry was badly affected many other sectors thrived.  Today the conditions are different as most sectors are seriously impacted by the recession.

So the construction industry is losing engineers that are key to ensuring that buildings will be more sustainable.  How will they be replaced, particularly as progressively more demanding regulations will require better engineers to meet the technical challenges that lie ahead in the forthcoming decades?

This problem is compounded by the fact that one of the biggest problems experienced throughout the world is that school leavers tend to want the fast route to the perceived big incomes in other sectors e.g. Marketing or Business Administration.  As mentioned in the letter by Ken McDougall in the CIBSE Journal many UK University building services courses have closed in recent years due to lack of interest.

Some however thrive such as the course at the Dublin Institute of Technology.  I meet with so many DIT’ers who are dispersed throughout the world and IES employ about ten of them.  One of the reasons this course is so successful is the passion of one of the lecturers, Ken Beattie.  Ken has passed his passion on to so many people that are making a significant contribution to engineering community throughout the world.  The industry and good sustainable design need more Ken’s.

In October 2009 it was reported that large deposits of Rare Earth Metals were found in Greenland.  This has enormous implications on all of us as it reduced China’s worldwide monopoly in rare earth metals.  ‘So what?’, I hear you say.

Well the rare earth metals are extremely important in both green technology and electronic technology.  Realising this, and with large deposits of rare earth metals, in the mid-nineties the Chinese Government embarked on a policy of making rare earth metals to China as oil is to the Middle East.

They had succeeded as there was a general belief that they had gained a total worldwide monopoly of rare earth metals.  China implemented a policy of buying up companies that owned non-Chinese rare earth metal sites until they owned more that 95% of the market.  They also started exporting 6% less per annum creating potential short-falls in a market that was growing in demand by 10% per annum.

There were also allegations that if a rare earth site was close to coming on stream the price for rare earth metals would suddenly drop making the site uneconomical and when the site closed the price would surprisingly rise again.

This Chinese Monopoly was causing panic in Japan as they needed rare earth materials to maintain their position as the major manufacturer of ‘green’ as there are now a lot of technologies that can’t work without rare earth metals.  Therefore someone having a monopoly on such a key component of our future in helping attenuate climate change is worrying.  Currently, China is in effective control of the global supply and it has positioned itself to retain control.

This would render the plans of many Government plans to build a green society meaningless with access to rare earth metals.  With China significantly cutting export quotas there would be insufficient supply of rare earth metals for the rest of the world, driving prices up and limiting ‘green’ aspirations unless purchased from China.

There was a wide scale belief that because China dramatically cutting its annual rare earth export quotas it would soon become impossible for any company to produce a wind turbine or hybrid electric car outside China.  This would give China an enormous commercial advantage in manufacturing ‘green’ technology.

Consequently, many believe that perceived China’s monopolistic strategy is as follows:
• Give its own high-tech industries a chance to flourish and gain a huge competitive edge over rivals in the rest of the world,
• Force foreign companies to move their high-tech jobs to China to circumvent quotas.

Quite frankly you cannot help but admire how the Chinese have adapted to capitalism and have created this monopoly from under the noses of the rest of the world.

However, this new site in Greenland will redress the balance.  It is the world’s largest known reserve of rare earth metals and has the potential to meet at least 25 per cent of global rare earth demand for the next half century and is expected to be able to produce about 50,000 tonnes per year of rare earth-bearing ore by 2014.

Consequently, this Greenland site has the potential to significantly reduce China’s power in the global supply of rare earth metals. 

This is obviously very good news for us all – unless of course China purchases the company that plans to develop the site!

I believe we will need to tax our use of energy or emitting carbon to help, particularly the more developed countries, to adjust our habits.  Energy efficiency or using energy more sparingly is essential to mitigate climate change.  But as we are not going to make these lifestyle changes easily or fast enough so we need to incentivise people and businesses, through taxation, to help reduce our dependency on energy.  Also we cannot expect the developing world to make the same reductions as are required in the developed nations.  We all know the inequality in energy use in different parts of the world.

A report by the UK Green Fiscal Commission (GFC) was publicly launched in November 2009 (http://www.greenfiscalcommission.org.uk/) which looked in detail at the whole range of issues surrounding green taxes and environmental tax reform (ETR). The Commission’s work covered:
• How green taxes/ETR works
• The environmental, economic and social implications of ETR
• Attitudes to green taxes and ETR

The focus of the Commission’s work was the greening the UK tax system to make an important contribution to the cost-effective resolution of environmental problems.  For example, this could mean a levy of £3,300 for a new car for individuals and British business would expect a bill of £370 billion to help the UK Government mitigate climate change by 2020.

Will UK citizens and businesses see the long-term benefit of this taxation?  This is a prime example of the ‘Sustainability Dilemma’ – why should I pay £3,300 extra for a new car when it does not happen in other countries? and why should my business pay to fund the UK’s commitment to climate change as it could make UK companies internationally uncompetitive?

Can we get the world’s major economies to agree to adopt a green tax to try and help re-train consumerism without making their businesses uncompetitive?  It will be a brave government to be first to implement such a strategy.

So we are starting to see the first assessments of the failure to reach any significant agreement at Copenhagen at the end of 2009.  A study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impacts Research in Germany has been published in Nature and it reports that a rise of at least 3°C by 2100 is likely.

The report states that the current national emissions targets could lock the world into exceeding 3 °C warming.  A summary of the report states:
• Nations will probably meet only the lower ends of their emissions pledges in the absence of a binding international agreement
• Nations can bank an estimated 12 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalents surplus allowances for use after 2012
• Land-use rules are likely to result in further allowance increases of 0.5 GtCO2-eq per year
• Global emissions in 2020 could thus be up to 20% higher than today
• Current pledges mean a greater than 50% chance that warming will exceed 3°C by 2100
• If nations agree to halve emissions by 2050, there is still a 50% chance that warming will exceed 2°C and will almost certainly exceed 1.5°C

In the Nature article, the Potsdam team describing the COP15 pledges as “paltry”.  “The prospects for limiting global warming to 2°C – or even to 1.5°C, as more than 100 nations demand – are in dire peril,” they conclude.

From the BBC Website: Chances of a 3°C rise are higher than evens, the team calculates (simplified from Potsdam Institute’s Nature paper)

Personally I think they are being optimistic.  I believe we will see 3°C much sooner than suggested in this report. 

So if these figures are correct then the most serious impact of climate change is over 90 years away, then why worry and let’s find a great big sand pit to bury our heads in, as most of us will be dead and it is someone else’s problem!  Oh but wait a minute if we have 3°C rise which results in one or more of the tipping points being reached then desertification will increase around the planet and we will all be up to our necks in sand.  So we have two options: get used to sand or reduce our carbon emissions dramatically.

WalMart has dropped to the third largest company in the world in terms of revenue.  Only Shell and Exxon have greater turnover.  It is interesting that whilst there is a strong anti-WalMart sentiment there is a far greater amount of people benefit from WalMart’s business otherwise it would not be so successful.

However, it appears that all of us are starting to benefit from WalMart as it should be recognised as a true leader in sustainable design.  I know that WalMart is making a significant difference in the energy consumption of its new and existing stores.  However it is using its considerable commercial muscle to make its supply chain improve their sustainability. You can read their sustainability policies here…

WalMart recently announces that it plans to cut 20 million metric tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions from its supply chain by 2015.  That will be more than some countries will achieve.  WalMart are getting their supplier to examine the carbon lifecycle of their products from raw materials all the way through to recycling packaging.  They will not make suppliers participate in this initiative but they have made it clear that they only wanted to do business with suppliers that shared its goals.

As usual there are critics of anything that WalMart does, but WalMart continues to improve the energy efficiency of their stores, has improved the efficiency of its transportation and it has created a global index to measure the environmental impact of its products amongst other initiatives.

Whilst you cannot please all of the people all of the time, through its sustainability initiatives, WalMart is clearly demonstrating leadership in significantly reducing carbon emissions that we all benefit – whether we like WalMart or not.

Luxury toilet paper might be soft and gentle but it is bad for the environment as reported in the New Scientist (24 April 2010, Issue 2757).

Some facts:
• 60 million rolls of toilet paper are flushed away in Europe every day
• The average American gets though 57 sheets a day, six times the global average.

That second fact is seriously weird.  If that is the ‘average’ what are the biggest users doing?  Literally!

The Worldwatch Institute in Washington DC highlighted the wastage of paper in rich and rapidly developing nations.  In the US, 14.5 million tonnes of office paper and newspaper will be dumped this decade, despite being ideal for recycling as toilet paper – which is probably a better way to ‘dump’ the waste.

The potential savings are huge: recycled paper uses 64 per cent less energy and 50 per cent less water, and creates 74 per cent less air pollution, compared with paper made from virgin wood pulp.

The biggest obstacle to recycling, says Worldwatch, is a preference for luxury, multi-ply tissues.  We are such softies.

Whilst western nations are the biggest users of toilet paper, the problem is increasing as its use is increasing in China and Africa.