Justine Cooper

Assessing vulnerability, resilience and adaptive capacity of a UK Social Landlord

Purpose – This paper aims to explore the preparedness of a UK Registered Social Landlord (RSL) for current and future flooding. It examines the understanding of vulnerability, resilience and adaptive capacity amongst senior managers responsible for approximately 4,000 homes and tests the organisations contingency planning against a range of flood scenarios. The paper then examines the problems of integrating future adaptation plans into built asset management strategies. Design/methodology/approach – Analysis of existing datasets, field surveys, workshops, formal meetings, document analysis and semi-structured interviews were used to develop and test the impact of a series of flooding scenarios on the physical performance of the organisations domestic properties and on the effectiveness of their contingency/adaptation plans. Findings – Whilst individuals within the RSL had a broad understanding of vulnerability and resilience to flooding; and the organisation possessed the management attributes normally...

Advent of Climate Change and Resultant Energy Related Obsolescence in the Built Environment

By 2050s the UK is expected to experience: increase in average summer mean temperatures (predicted to rise by upto 3.5 o C) and frequency of heat-waves / very hot days; and increases in winter precipitation (of up to 20%) and possibly more frequent severe storms. Also, in 2050s approximately 70% of UK buildings will have been built before 2010, which due to aforesaid climate change factors will suffer from various types of obsolescence – including energy related obsolescence. Thus, if sustainable built environment is to accommodate climate change and the investment in these buildings (which was approximately £129 billions in 2007 in the UK alone) is to be protected, action needs to be taken now to assess the vulnerability and resilience of the existing UK built environment; and plan adaptation / mitigation interventions, that allow to continue to support the quality of life and well-being of UK citizens. The situation with other countries around the globe is not dissimilar, although there may be some variation in nature and quantity of climate change, and the way climate change impacts manifest themselves in relation to the resources and governance of a given country. Failure to act now will mean that the costs of tackling climate change in future will be much higher, jeopardising not only environmental but also economic sustainability. In view of these concerns, this paper will focus on obsolescence that is associated with energy and climate change. The climate change factors that shall be specifically covered include global warming, flooding, carbon emissions, carbon cut targets, environmental legislation and building regulations. Obsolescence types are categorised into direct and indirect obsolescence groups. Moreover, although the paper will mention both generation and consumption of energy, the later shall be more specifically addressed due to accelerating demand of power as well as pressures for efficient energy consumption in buildings to cut carbon emissions. Finally, in light of to date literature review, the paper will emphasise requirement of a fundamental framework for identification and categorisation of energy related obsolescence in the built environment, which shall attract interests for further investigation from both researchers and practitioners.

Built asset management climate change adaptation model

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present results of an action research addressing climate change adaptation of selected social housing stock in the UK. Climate change continues to pose major challenges to those responsible for the management of built assets. The adaptation required to address long-term building performance affected by climate change rarely get prioritised above more immediate, short-term needs (general built asset management needs). Design/methodology/approach The study adopts an in-depth participatory action research with a London-based social landlord and integrates climate change adaptation framework and performance-based model established through author’s previous research projects. Findings A staged process for including adaptation measures in built asset management strategy is developed along with metrics to analyse the performance of the housing stock against climate change impact of flooding. The prioritisation of adaptation measure implementation into long-term built asset management plans was examined through cost-based appraisal. Research limitations/implications The research was carried out with a singular organisation, already acquainted with potential climate change impact, vulnerability and adaptive capacity assessment. The process adopted will differ for similar organisation in the sector with different settings and limited working knowledge of climate change impact assessment. Practical implications The paper concludes with a ten-step process developed as an aide memoir to guide social landlords through the climate change adaptation planning process. Originality/value In addition to the practical results from the study, the paper outlines a novel process that integrates resilience concepts, risk framing (to climate change impact) and performance management into built asset management (maintenance and refurbishment) planning.

Sustainable Obsolescence Management – A Conceptual Unified Framework to Form Basis of an Interactive Intelligent Multimedia System

The environment that surrounds us can be categorised into two parts, the natural environment and the built environment. Which ever environment type is to be maintained and / or enhanced for good, its sustainability has to be managed against obsolescence. From the built environment perspective, well more than half of whatever has been built and is being built, is going to be around for many decades to come. Thus, managing the sustainability of the existing built environment against obsolescence is of paramount importance. Keeping the focus on the built environment category, this paper establishes that sustainability and obsolescence are inversely related concepts. Furthermore, like sustainability, obsolescence is a multifaceted entity, thereby necessitating multimedia engagement of people/stakeholders, programs, technologies, equipment and other resources more than usual. Discussing the importance of the existing built environment, this paper presents a tool in the form of a conceptual but unified framework of sustainable obsolescence management. This framework can be used as fundamentals for further research in future to develop an intelligent multimedia architecture. Thus, the research work presented in this paper is at an initial stage of development of an intelligent multimedia system in a holistic format.