Hi, I am a final year QS student doing dissertation based on topic ‘ barriers for implement ting sustainability into real world practices’ the main research aims is to prove that cost is the main constraints and why?

Sustainability has become a popular issues, the government recognize its importance to create a better quality for life. Therefore various actions plans and strategies were develop in order to implement sustainability into real world practices.

Such as the sustainable code, sustainable procurement strategy etc
But does these plans successful? If not, what are the problems? What stops sustainability to be implemented ?

I would be appreciate if all of you take part in this discussion as I would hope to gain as many information as possible in a very short time due to time constraints.

I develope a questionnaire to be distribute. Who is interest to fill in please contact me and i will email to you.
JacquelineJoo797@hotmail.com

Million thanks for all who are willing to help me.

How are you defining sustainable?

Some things cost nothing, many produce significant savings in running costs, some have long term payback times but even these are shorter than the life of the building.

The main barrier to the change towards more sustainable construction is the stick in the mud ways of the building industry in combination with a singular lack of education of the general public. When considering a move of home the slogan location, location location rules but it won't be long before greener issues start to be factored into this equation.

sustainability in short means

prudent use of natural resource which cause minimum negative impact on the environment, which maintain the quality of life for the present and future.

Hopes that comply with yours. But does sustainability constructions usually produce buildings with a higher initial cost, introducing new technologies, construction methods and some environmental friendly materials?

I don't see why a low energy house needs to cost that much more than a regular house. Most of the benefit comes from higher levels of insulation and better air tightness/ventilation strategies. Implemented properly, you can design out the need for a central heating system, hence there is a saving to off-set against the cost. This is the idea behind the PassivHaus. I guess there is a resistance amongst consumers to homes without dedicated central heating systems but this is recent trend (we didn't have gas central heating until 1987 and we weren't living in a PassiveHaus - we just put up with the cold).

Things start getting expensive when you try to go a step further and become zero carbon because you have to invest in microgeneration which is very costly at the moment. Better to get 75% of the benefit for 25 % of the cost and leave it at that, rather than chasing the last 25% which costs 75% of the extra money (figures are just for illustration purposes). Call it "eco-minimalism" if you like, keep it simple, don't just throw money at the problem.

What stops sustainbility being implemented is the fact that energy is still much too cheap. Oil at $60 a barrel is being given away. Until this changes, what incentive have people got to implement sustainable design strategies? So long as we are not given the full facts on oil and gas reserves, the market will not drive prices higher until total production peaks i.e. it won't see the peak coming and drive up prices to reduce demand.

There needs to be a paradigm shift from the current belief that energy will always be cheap and easily available to a new paradigm where we arrange our societies to cope with a steadily falling and less reliable supply of energy. I don't think we are at that tipping point yet. We need a energy supply shock to galvanise opinion, then the energy sustainability agenda will start to be implemented as an urgent priority.