Are My Buildings and Labs High Performance?

We use the term 'high performance' to signal that that the green features of a building or lab are not separate add ons, but should be integrated into the design, and support all key objectives of developers and users. Doing this can mean that environmental benefit, and reduced operating costs, are achieved with no, or minimal increase in capital spend. Our two guides to the Benefits and Delivery of High Performance Buildings demonstrate that this can be achieved through means such as:

• Structures and layouts that deliver highly productive and adaptable working conditions;
• Practices and materials that are designed to safeguard occupants' health and well being; and
• Efficient use of energy and other resources.

Further synergies are possible in laboratories, as discussed in our papers on Laboratory Best Practice in the UK and USA and the results of our Laboratory Benchmarking programme. These include the greater safety and energy efficiency which can be achieved by a better understanding of laboratory conditions and use. The lab benchmarking builds on our broader programme of benchmarking over 300 higher education buildings, summarised in an Overview Report on the results from our 2002-4 benchmarking round, and individual papers on benchmark results from residences, and Sports centres.

As our guides to the Benefits and Delivery of High Performance Buildings demonstrate, an integrated and holistic pre-design and early design process which iteratively considers all the key building elements and features in relation to one another, and which incorporates the views of key stakeholders such as users and maintenance staff, is vital. This approach usually results in better functionality and avoidance of expensive errors (such as over-sizing of equipment and resultant wasteful energy consumption). Its importance - especially with regard to laboraratories - is recognised in the BREEAM Higher Education we have project managed on behalf of the sector. Our Laboratory Environmental Performance Criteria - which we have adapted for the UK from a US Labs21 original - provides an additional resource for assessing laboratory performance. The

High performance in higher education also means supporting teaching and learning. In collaboration with the University of Bradford's Ecoversity project, we are working to make the campus and its facilities 'transparent', so that its activities can be used as a curriculum resource. One example is our HEA Engineering Subject Centre-funded 'Professor Fume Cupboard' project, which is developing curriculum materials on laboratory ventilation and cooling which can be used by engineerign students to better understand the workings of their own laboratory. The issues are also discussed in our paper on Greening STEM.